Protest against cheap labour in garment industry
By Margaret Allan
SYDNEY — The Fair Wear Campaign, launched in April by a coalition of churches, community organisations and unions, held a speak-out outside the Sportsgirl retailer in the Pitt Street Mall on May 30.
The speak-out, attended by around 150 people, targeted clothing retailers and manufacturers who haven't signed the Homeworker Code of Practice stating that their products are not made using outworkers employed in non-award conditions.
Speakers included Tony Wolgar, national secretary of the Clothing, Textiles and Footwear Union; Jennie George, Australian Council of Trade Unions president; Angela Chan from the Ethnic Communities Council of NSW; and a representative of the NSW Labour Council.
In the Australian textile, clothing and footwear industries, the ratio of home-based outworkers to factory workers on award wages is estimated at 15:1. Almost all of these 300,000 super-exploited outworkers are migrant women, earning as little as $1.70 an hour and often relying on the extra labour of their children to reach unrealistic deadlines.
Debbie Carstens, a representative of Asian Women at Work and the Fair Wear Campaign, told Green Left Weekly that lobbying clothing retailers and manufacturers to sign the Code of Practice was starting to have an effect; seven retailers and three manufacturers have signed already.
She said the Fair Wear Campaign was also considering prosecuting those who contract work to home-based workers on a non-award piecework basis.
The campaign has been endorsed by other unions, including the Community and Public Sector Union, the Transport Workers Union and the Maritime Union of Australia. The Fair Wear Campaign can be contacted on (03) 9654 2488 or (02) 9331 8490 or by e-mail at fairwear@vic.uca.org.au.