Two Lakh Garment Workers Lost Their Jobs Overnight In Karnataka Due To COVID Pandemic

As a possible second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has brought back fears of income loss yet again, medium and small garment factories in Karnataka were forced to close down and around two lakh workers lost their jobs overnight during the last year.

Mansi Thapliyal/Reuters

According to The New Indian Express, most of them women employees, were among the worst hit last year. Export-oriented factories, meanwhile, experienced huge demands and are now allegedly overworking their employees with a huge cut in salaries. As per estimates, there are around 1,500 garment factories in the state, of which more than 900 are in Bengaluru. According to Labour Minister Shivaram Hebbar, in his reply to Tiptur MLA B C Nagesh in the Assembly, more than 2.85 lakh women were working in 983 garment units as of last year.

Representational

239 owners of factories booked

"This year almost over 1 lakh women have not been able to join duty yet as many garment factories have not opened yet, after COVID. Garment factories are in such a state today," Hebbar said. Many of the units shut down and the total number of women workers has now dropped to less than one lakh.

Hebbar said notices have been issued to 396 garment factories for not providing the requisite facilities for women employees as per rules. "It has come to our notice that the rules have not been implemented properly yet, the government will take this seriously and take necessary action," he said. He also said that cases have been booked against 239 people (factories or its owners) for not providing minimum wages to women working in garment factories.

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Plight of sacked women workers

¡°I lost my job on November 28. The factory all of a sudden closed down and since then I have been at home, unemployed. I am trying to find other work, including as a domestic worker; but I am not getting work anywhere,¡± said Parimala, a former garment worker who worked at a unit in Ramanagara. Such is the condition of several other garment workers.

BCCL

Another worker, Aarti, working at the same unit recalled, ¡°We have worked in that factory for 13 years. We even engaged in plucking weeds for the factory. I am a 45-year-old and lost my husband. Wherever I try, nobody is giving me a job. After working all these years for that factory, we are left with nothing. We have come to the verge of being on the streets.¡±

Meagre salaries, no facilities

Women constitute the largest workforce in garment units, working from 9 am to 5.30 pm for salaries ranging between Rs 8,500 and Rs 10,000 per month. ¡°Their work includes right from cutting cloth to packaging and dispatching. At least 85 per cent are women, and a large number of them are from Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar and other states,¡± says Rukmini, president of the Garment and Textile Workers¡¯ Union.

BCCL

According to activists, many of the workers who lost their jobs returned to their native villages where some are working under MNREGA. Those who stayed back in Bengaluru are doing odd jobs like housekeeping.