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Free Trade Zones: Covid-19 merely exposed factory workers’ plight 

10 Mar 2021

By Amalini De Sayrah   Homes along the small residential lanes in Amandoluwa have signs tacked to their gates - ‘Outsiders are not allowed to enter’. Located along the Southern edge of Phase Two of the Katunayake Export Processing Zone, these homes serve as boarding houses for the thousands of workers who sustain the factories located within it.  Over the course of last year, these factories and Zones have come under scrutiny for the outbreaks of Covid-19 recorded among the workers. A total of 400 Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests were recently carried out in one factory in the Zone, of which 176 persons tested positive. However, there are a total of 2,000 workers in that factory. “I feel like if they do PCR tests on everyone within a single factory, at least 50% will be positive,” said a social worker attempting to provide relief to hundreds of workers living in these boarding houses. They explained how between the time someone takes a test and the results are confirmed, it is likely that the entire factory line that they have been working on would have contracted the virus.  This is in part due to the shortcomings in the enforcement of the health regulations in various factories, but, mostly due to the workers’ living conditions at their boarding houses. While sewing or cutting machines along the line can be placed a metre apart and sanitiser be made available at all points, social distancing is nearly impossible in the crowded hostels. Up to 80 persons can live in one of these houses, sharing six bathrooms and showers, and one well. The transmission risk of an airborne virus such as Covid-19 is extremely high.    Accommodation and relief  These hostels exist to accommodate the many persons who travel far from their hometowns outside of the Gampaha District – some from as far as the Northern Province – in the hope of earning a good salary by working in the factories. This movement for work therefore left them stuck in limbo during the relief distribution scheduled to be undertaken by the Government when the pandemic hit last year. Local Government officials say that they are not entitled to receive relief rations within the division they live in now, as they are not official ‘residents’. Political representatives of that area also do not take note of the needs of these voters, since they are not registered on electoral lists in this location, and therefore don’t translate into votes for them. Many of the workers therefore relied on social workers, and on rare occasions, the factories they were employed at, to receive rations during the lockdown.  All hostels of workers continue to be placed in mandatory quarantine, as cases in the Zone continue to rise. Local Police stations have been ordered by higher-ups to provide relief for the areas under their control. They are however not given any funding from the State, or from the Government’s accumulated Covid-19 fund to do this. If any of the residents make complaints, it is the individual Policemen or the small station that is reprimanded. As such, social work groups find themselves approached by the Police, who are desperate for funds or rations that they can use to provide those in mandatory quarantine with some form of relief.  “A Grama Niladhari narrowly missed getting hammered by the people at the boarding houses,” another social worker said. These officials distributed the stipulated Rs. 5,000 relief for those in the surrounding villages of Amandoluwa and Jayawardhanapura. Those in hostels, whose original hometowns are up to hundreds of kilometres away, did not receive this. However, the Grama Sevaka made these workers who are from outstation areas, fill forms with their details on multiple occasions, which made the workers feel that they could possibly be given some relief. Months have passed, more forms have been filled and no relief has materialised – the emotional bribery the workers have been subjected to is an additional strain.  Some companies do have facilities where only workers from their factories stay in their hostels. However, in most cases, it appears that the workers’ living conditions mean little to the factory owners, as the situation and transmission in most hostels suggest. That these people have often travelled far from their homes only to have to live in cramped spaces is a responsibility externalised from the factory itself, allowing factory owners to bypass the responsibility for the conditions their own staff live in.    Work, termination and pay  Since March 2020, when lockdowns to contain Covid-19 were first put in place in Sri Lanka, workers in these factories have experienced threats to their jobs, pay, wellbeing and security. In some cases, it has been recorded that workers’ holidays and leave were slashed for the days they spent in mandatory quarantine, while the remaining days were calculated as no-pay leave. Salaries of some workers were reduced, and others were paid only their basic wage while being in quarantine. This basic wage barely sustains a livelihood, and workers depend on additional bonuses to be able to support themselves, their children, and their families outstation.  Some factories terminated the employment of everyone who had been working for under six months, and on occasion the entire workforce of a single factory was let go. As production began and the companies found themselves in need of labour, they recruited workers via manpower agencies for a slightly higher basic wage on six-month contracts, promising that they would be made permanent later. As this period came to an end, the workers were told that they could not be made permanent due to the Covid-19 situation. Workers in some factories, before being let go, note being very directly told by the management that “if you’re not there, it doesn’t matter to us, there are enough of people who will work for a lower wage.”  For several months, and to date on some training lines in the factories, workers are sewing masks to be used either by their colleagues, or for the company to sell. “Inserting the metal strip that goes above the nose, to hold the mask in place, it’s really frustrating,” one worker said.    Factories as super-spreaders  As the pandemic was spreading throughout the country, people were brought into work at the factories by owners who claimed that they needed to produce in order to meet the orders that had been placed before the lockdowns. Many also received concessionary loans from the Government so that they could take care of their staff. How were those funds spent? Many factories fired their workers while others slashed their pay, and therefore it is clear that these concessions did not benefit the people working to produce garments, but only the factory owners.  While the cluster at the Brandix factory in Minuwangoda gained widespread attention, it is important to note that cases are on the rise in the Katunayake Zone as well as in other factories. Workers in all these locations too are experiencing hardships related to the spread.  From the end of 2020 to date, there have been reports in the media and from doctors working in base hospitals giving the numbers of workers from factories who have tested positive for Covid-19. There were significant numbers from factories in Panadura and Avissawella towards the end of last year. Currently, numbers in the Badulla District comprise largely of workers from factories in Rideemaliyadda, Hasalaka and Mahiyanganaya. One of these factories, which employed up to 2,500 workers, was shut recently, after nearly 200 workers tested positive for Covid-19.  That factories continue to run even as more cases are identified – and shut down only after the spread was significant - shows that despite previous experiences such as that from the Brandix factory in Minuwangoda, factories have not taken all possible measures to contain the spread of the virus. As vaccination is rolled out around the high-risk zones in the country, workers are still not prioritised to receive them.  Many owners will say that concerns around wages and worker wellbeing cannot be accommodated when Sri Lanka is losing competitiveness in the apparel industry. Research shows that the wages of Sri Lankan apparel workers are already at the bottom of the global ranks. Staying competitive therefore means pushing the burdens of productivity and efficiency onto the workers, while the factory owners simultaneously offer little to no improvements to their living conditions or wages.  Concerns regarding the working and living conditions in the Free Trade Zones and factories are constant, as are those with the wages. The spread of an airborne virus just amplifies the issues with 400 persons working in close quarters on a factory floor or 80 persons living in a single boarding house. The Covid-19 pandemic has not created, but merely exposed, these long-standing workers grievances.    (The writer is a researcher)


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