Flawed Fabrics
accordance with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions and Indian law. As in previous publications, this report focuses on forms of forced and bonded labour and labour migration within India. It focuses specifically on the exploitative labour practices that women workers in the South Indian spinning mill industry have to endure, many of them Dalits (‘outcaste’)9 and migrants. The report analyses relevant developments in the textile and garment industry with regard to corporate self-regulation, auditing and certification at the level of producers and buying companies. Last but not least, the report also makes concrete recommendations to relevant actors.
1.2 Methodology This report is the reflection of desk and field research undertaken by SOMO, ICN and local researchers in India.10 The report portrays the situation in the spinning units of five textile and garment enterprises in Tamil Nadu. These five mills have not been the focus of earlier publications by SOMO or ICN. The mills are part of the supply chains of European and US clothing brands and retailers, as units of vertically integrated Indian companies that engage in the production of ready-made garments. As producers of export quality yarn and fabrics, the mills are also part of the supply chains of many other European or US brands and retailers that source from garment manufacturers in countries such as China and Bangladesh. All five mills are members of the Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA) and/or the Tamil Nadu Spinning Mills Association (TASMA). The corporate profiles of these five mills presented in this report (see chapter 2) is based on information retrieved from the respective corporate websites complemented with intelligence painstakingly gathered by local researchers, such as for instance estimates about the number of workers employed at the five investigated companies. The researched unit of Sulochana Cotton Spinning Mills is located in Coimbatore District. The researched units of the other four mills are located in Tirupur District. Coimbatore and Tirupur are among the districts with the highest number of spinning mills in the state.
Worker interviews Workers were interviewed at each of the five spinning mills: 31 workers were interviewed at Premier Mills and 30 workers at each of the other mills. In total, 151 girls and young women were interviewed. According to estimates by local civil society organisations, an estimated 60 per cent of the total labour force of the Tamil Nadu spinning mills are women. The choice to interview women is a reflection of the concern over the disadvantaged position of women workers in comparison to men. Women are overrepresented in the spinning mill industry, particularly in low-paid and low-skilled jobs. In general, it must be noted that opportunities for researchers to get to talk to workers are very limited. Workers spend long days at the factory, live in fairly inaccessible and guarded hostels, and have very little free time. Unmarried girls and young women are not supposed to make contact with strangers.
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