Urgent action to save jobs in global clothing and textile industry

With the recession in full swing and job losses within the global apparel and textile sectors due to increase the international Textile, Garment and Leather Workers' Federation made an urgent plea for action at the International Labour Conference that took place on June 17 2009 in Geneva.

It is interesting to note that that The Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union agreed to a collective wage increase of 8.5% for the South African footwear sector.[1] The question I put forward is thus: is wage increases in an already stressed industry sector prudent for the growth of the industry and sustainability of jobs? Is it a short-term victory for the union and their members? Would it not be more effective in finding mechanisms to sustain current job levels in the apparel and textile sector by providing the space for unions and industry to work and develop mutual beneficial operational systems that ensure apparel and textile firms remain in business?

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Below is the speech given by Neil Kearney of the ITFLWF

INTERNATIONAL TEXTILE, GARMENT AND LEATHER WORKERS’ FEDERATION
Speech by ITGLWF General Secretary Neil Kearney

International Labour Conference
Geneva, 17 June 2009

As the global economic recession deepens workers, their families and communities are hurting. Particularly hard hit are those who have lost their jobs. There are now twelve million such workers in the textile, clothing and footwear industries - mainly women and often the family’s sole breadwinner - laid off in the past year. At least another three million workers in the sector await the same fate.

These workers are paying for the recklessness of greedy bankers, lax labour law enforcement and unregulated globalisation. Their pain needs urgently to be turned into gain for the industry and for its current and future workforce.

With up to fifteen million unemployed or potentially unemployed the luxury of drawn out academic and theoretical assessments of the situation is not an option. Workers and their trade unions recognise that urgent remedial action is needed to deal with the immediate crisis and to chart a course for a sustainable future for the industry and those it employs.

That’s why a broad section of shareholders and stakeholders in the industry, brands and buyers, manufacturers and trade unions, governments and international institutions and various civil society bodies, under the umbrella of the MFA Forum, have worked at breakneck speed, as the crisis has unfolded, to develop survival and recovery proposals with decent work as their mainstay.

Noting that economists foresee domestic consumption, particularly in Asia, as the best route to recovery, the Forum has devised a strategy grounded in decent work and promoting the payment of a living wage as a key tool.

The strategy, under the title “Sustainable Apparel and Footwear Initiative”, demands that the sector secures access to some of the US$3 trillion allocated by the G20 as counter recession stimuli packages. Corporates and trade unions recognise the urgent need to leverage trade finance, the absence of which is today strangling the industry. The Forum wants workers in the industry to benefit immediately from the Rapid Social Response Fund of the World Bank’s Vulnerability Financing Facility with aid going to “good manufacturers” and with preferential access to credit and at preferential rates for businesses demonstrably providing decent work.

This is seen as a remarkable opportunity to support raising labour standards in the industry through instruments of financing.

Short-term stabilisation efforts need to be accompanied by measures designed to ready the industry for recovery and to boost competitivity.

Maintaining employment is seen as key here with training and retraining cutting in to stave off redundancies, keeping workforces intact and using downtime to up skill to boost productivity Funding derived from part of the stimuli packages and government involvement and support will be crucial in this preparation for recovery.

The final element of the strategy is aimed at those where survival isn’t possible at the moment providing for a responsible transition with displaced workers receiving their full legal entitlement to all outstanding wages, pensions and severance, access to jobs banks and retraining and underpinned by government provided safety nets. The current crisis has clearly demonstrated the hardship caused by the absence of severance, unemployment and pension funds in many economies and the need for the urgent establishment of such provision.

Interestingly, the MFA Forum strategy recognises the fallacy of total reliance on exporting for growth and development. Given that consumption in US and European markets is likely to take some considerable time to reach pre-recession levels, the strategy places central importance on promoting economic development and stimulating consumer demand primarily in textile, clothing and footwear producing countries. Hence the emphasis on decent work incorporating the payment of a living wage to all workers in the sector.

Key players in the industry have already begun considering options for modifying their supply chain strategies in order to focus on a broader geographic distribution of consumption, the need for a more highly skilled labour force and innovations in environmental sustainability.

The Sustainable Apparel and Footwear Initiative is, in reality, seeking a revolution in the sector using the recession to fashion a new model for the textile, clothing and footwear industry based on new global supply chains and new global consumption patterns.

To succeed the strategy will require urgent input from a range of players, including the industry itself, the ILO, World Bank, UNDP and governments from North and South!

The ILO should be at the heart of honing this decent work centred stabilisation and recovery initiative for the textile, clothing and footwear sector. In the first instance trade unions want to see the ILO hosting an early round-table brainstorming bringing together the wide range of players needed to provide the oxygen for the initiative including representatives from the entire textile, clothing and footwear supply chain - manufacturers and trade unions, brands and retailers, governments from both exporting and importing countries, and the financial institutions and the development agencies.

This unprecedented range of interests would then work on how to share the tasks needed in developing the new model industry centred on decent work and paying a living wage to every employee. In co-ordination they would then roll out the initiative in strategic textile, clothing and footwear producing countries and linked closely to the ILO’s Better Work programme.

The broad framework outlined has been put together rapidly. Our challenge is now to refine it and put it into operation. The International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation believes the ILO is well placed to play a lead role in this in fulfilment of its long-term responsibility for defending and promoting employment, decent work and sustainability.

We welcome the commitment of the ILO in addressing the impact of the current economic crisis on employment and look to it to translate this strong political will into immediate action on the ground in the textile, clothing and footwear industry.

[1] Ref Ifashion- SA fashion website.