Garment industry campaign to counter stigma for working women

Two years ago it was the end to US quotas that hit the Sri Lankan garments’ industry like a thunderbolt. Now it’s a shortage of workers and idle capacity that has the industry desperately looking for workers and trying to retain them.

With 30,000 vacancies, about 10 percent of the total organized workforce, and more vacancies in the informal sector, the industry is placing its bets on a new campaign from January to attract young women back to the country’s biggest foreign exchange earner and erase growing misconceptions, perceptions and stigmatization.

“There are very few people coming to work in factories. We think this has been the situation in the past five to six months in the zones and outside,” said Ajith Dias, an industrialist and handling labour and welfare issues at industry body, JAAF (Joint Apparel Association Forum).

“They are not joining because of the negative perception. Some of the reasons we have found is that for example in some of Sinhala tele-dramas, the bad person or the one who suffers is the garments girl. These girls are looked down upon society. They are called Juki girls. Because of these perceptions, they believe that if they go into the garments trade their marriage prospects would be affected,” he said.

The 25-30 million-rupee campaign will aim to change perceptions, attitudes and show young women that this is not a bad trade after all. “We will try to bring about a change in attitudes amongst the people. We are hoping to target in the villages – the school principal, teachers, the priests, temples, churches … talk to them explain that this a key industry in the economy, etc,” Dias said.

Times have been tough for the industry. When companies go on a road-show to the village to recruit staff, girls showe interest but by the time transport is arranged to bring them down to the factories, attitudes have changed and parents don’t want them to go.“What is worrying is that parents are not encouraging them to go work in garment factories. There are some 150,000 school leavers after OLs every year. Nobody knows what happens to them. We want to tap this source too,” he said, adding that the shortage of workers has created a lot of idle capacity as there are no operators.

The campaign in which proposals have been called for from some advertising agencies, will also seek government funding through the Board of Investment (BOI).

Finding workers is not the only problem. Retaining them is even more difficult because of an acute shortage of good and safe housing, among other issues. The industry has been discussing with the government for years on this problem but with little progress.

JAAF has urged the government to provide incentives for housing that would involve companies while a major impediment is the inability to build houses inside zones. “If we are able to do this … provide housing at least for 10,000 workers inside, that could go long way.”

The government is considering providing free land but foreign investors also argue that providing housing to workers would add up to costs. “Investors say they were asked to invest, which then extended to providing food and other benefits. Now housing is being added,” he said.

Another problem in attracting workers is that young women feel it’s more dignified to work in the Middle East as a housemaid than as a factory worker here.“They don’t realize the social consequences in that route like broken families, etc,” Dias added.

Asked whether one of the reasons why big manufacturers like MAS Holdings or Brandix are setting up overseas units is because of the shortage of workers, Dias said: “better productivity is one but being close to a regular fabric supply is the core issue.” He said the industry is trying to set up more textile mills in Sri Lanka – a return to the start-up days of the industry in the sixties and the seventies when there were several big and small mills around.

Unions are also to be drawn in the programme with JAAF hoping to get their assistance in the campaign. In the meantime female workers have also banded together in a campaign to uplift the image of working women.

A collection of 12 songs in CD and cassette format, titled “Sannali Purawara,” (City of Tailors) was launched recently by the Women’s Centre in Katunayake, an organisation campaigning for the rights of working women, to commemorate its 25 anniversary.