by | Dec 14, 2017 | Blog, reports, Resources - Shoes, Shoes
A Study on the Social and Environmental Impacts of Tanneries in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, India.
Every one of us wears shoes every day. But do we ever ask ourselves where the leather comes from to make our shoes? How is the skin of an animal turned into a shoe? Who does this work and under what conditions? This report takes us on a journey to the beginning of a leather shoe. The report looks at the leather industry in India and reveals the social and environmental impacts of tanneries. It provides a glimpse at the adverse conditions at tanneries in India, where people work with minimal or no protective gear, for payment below the minimum wage and no social security benefit. The workers themselves suffer from occupational diseases and the communities around the tanneries have to deal with polluted rivers and drinking water and the dumping of solid waste without regard to environmental standards and rules.
Read the main report: Watch Your Step Report
Read the factsheet: Watch Your Step Factsheet
Published in 2017.
by | Dec 7, 2016 | Blog, Shoes
The right to dream: homeworkers in the UK and India
Guest blog by Rachel McCarthy
Wednesday, 5:30am. Rose wakes up and makes breakfast for her two young children. Rushing out the door, she walks an hour to work in the rain as she can’t afford the bus fare. And there she sits crouching at the bench, sewing seams for garments at 6p an hour. The men at the factory earn 8p and upwards. After ten hours work, her fingers ache and her head throbs from the noise of the machines. At home after cooking tea, ironing, and seeing her daughters to bed, she finally hits the pillow at 11:30pm, exhausted by the drudgery of the day.
Rose lived in inner city London in the 1970s. Her story is emblematic of women’s lives across the UK. The Equal Pay Act was introduced in 1970, with the intention of women and men to be paid equal wages. In reality, though, women endured more years of discrimination and inequality.
Female factory workers in the 1970s
I visited the exhibition Women and Work at the Tate Modern, which uncovered the lives of these invisible women in our country. I was struck by the account of Jean, a factory worker who smuggled bread into her stockings. Jean felt hungry and couldn’t wait until lunch to eat, so she took a bite- but she was caught and fired on the spot. Mary, another woman at the same factory, was found in tears because her weekly wages were docked for no reason, meaning she wouldn’t have enough money to pay her rent. With the help of the union representative, it turned out this was a ‘mistake’ which was corrected.
It’s shocking to think just two generations ago, women in this county- maybe your mother or grandmother- were trampled on in like this every day. Would you put up with it?
The demand for cheap labour didn’t stop there, and it was women who paid the price. Factory owners reacted quickly to the Equal Pay Act, downgrading people’s jobs and forcing women to work from their homes.
Homeworkers (Margaret Harrison, 1977) testifies to the real lives of women in the UK who were paid poverty wages for brands like Debenhams and Dorothy Perkins.
Ordinary women, desperate for work, had no choice but to work at home without legal rights or protection. They became invisible. Their hands were swollen and painful but they couldn’t afford to take time off sick. They got into debt when companies didn’t pay them their wages. They knew they were being exploited, but all the while they kept working and fighting for their children to have a better life.
Today, 40 years later, it is women in Asia who are the homeworkers. The effect of globalisation means that the world’s poorest and most disadvantaged women are now fighting this battle. Supply chains have changed dramatically, but the back-breaking exploitation and discrimination of working women remains. In fact, it’s become much worse.
In Ambur, a dry, dusty town in south India, many Dalit and Muslim women earn a living by stitching uppers on shoes. In the report Stitching Our Shoes- Homeworkers in South India, we found women are paid around 6 rupees a piece. This is about 96 rupees (£1) a day- well below the poverty line. These shoes are sold for between £40 and £100 on our high streets.
Women living in poverty have no choice but to take this work. “Today we may earn 50 rupees but there is no guarantee that we will have an income tomorrow,” says Sumitra, an Indian homeworker. “Those who work in the company have some guarantee for work but we don’t. If we fall sick and cannot work, then the day’s income is lost.”
A female homeworker stiches shoes in south India
Women sit, bent over on the floor for hours on end, repeatedly stitching the thread through the tough leather upper and pulling the needle to the right tension. Runa describes how the “numbness of the hands” means the homeworker “can’t even do the household everyday washing and can’t carry things quickly. So due to all the hand work, she is suffering.”
Workers are provided with the thread to stich the uppers, but they have to buy their own needles, trapping them into a cycle of debt. They suffer from pain in their back, neck and shoulders, and often have problems with their eyesight and chronic headaches.
It’s hard to understand how workers endure these inhumane conditions, day in, day out. But these women are under the thumb of powerful companies and intermediaries, who ruthlessly exploit their cheap labour. “We have nothing,” says Shanti. “That’s why we know this is employer exploitation. We have no other way. That’s why we are involved in this [work]. If I have any other income, definitely I wouldn’t do this.”
A workers’ rights protest in Bangladesh
But these women are not powerless. There are signs that they are beginning to fight back. In the villages surrounding Ambur, small groups of women have started to associate and advocate for better pay. It’s early days, and there is resistance from the powerful intermediaries and some of the workers who are afraid to put themselves forward. We can show our solidarity by demanding that retailers recognise homeworkers in their supply chains. I know there is hope that these women will fight for the rights and dignity they deserve.
I am struck by how the lives of these ordinary women from London and India- Rose, Jean and Mary; Sumitra, Runa and Shanti; are threaded together by shared experiences. Drudgery. Monotony. Broken dreams. But they believe they are better than this. Joining together is a surely the way they can protect and keep themselves strong.
Long Hours Versus Efficiency by Miss Cave for the Industrial Sectional Committee in the Women’s Industrial News, 1914.
Women and Work: A Document on the Division of Labour in Industry by Margaret Harrison, Kay Hunt, Mary Kelly 1973-75, an exhibition at the Tate Modern.
Homeworkers by Margaret Harrison 1977, an exhibition at the Tate Modern.
Stitching Our Shoes- Homeworkers in South India a joint report by Homeworkers Worldwide, Labour Behind the Label and Cividep, March 2016.
Bread and Roses by James Oppenheim, 1911.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Pay_Act_1970
by | Mar 8, 2016 | Press release
For immediate release
Labour Behind the Label
8 March, 2016
New Research Uncovers Hidden Women Who Stitch Our Shoes
A new report, ‘Stitching Our Shoes’, launched today, on International Womens Day, by campaigning groups Labour Behind the Label and Homeworkers Worldwide, uncovers the reality of exploitation in the supply chains of many leather shoes sold on our high streets. The UK is one of the largest footwear markets in the world, with each person in the UK buying, on average, five pairs of shoes per year. New research has found that homeworkers, an invisible workforce of women earning poverty wages in precarious employment, form a key part of the leather shoe supply chain.
There are thousands of women homeworkers in the Indian leather shoe sector alone. These women, often married with young children or elderly parents to look after, mainly stitch the uppers of shoes, one of the most back-breaking and labour-intensive parts of production.
In Ambur, Tamil Nadu, India, homeworkers typically earn less than 10 pence for each pair of leather uppers they hand-stitch, which are sometimes sold by British brands for over £100 per pair. This is well under a minimum wage, let alone a living wage. With no health insurance or benefits afforded to their factory counterparts, this pay does not allow for the medical attention necessary to deal with regular health complaints such as skin rashes from the chemicals used in leather tanning, numbness in the hands, back pain and eye strain.
“We have nothing. That’s why we know this is employer exploitation. We have no other way. That’s why we are involved in this work” Shanti, a homeworker from Tamil Nadu region in India.
These are invisible workers, employed directly by factory middlemen without contracts or any legal or social protection. They provide both the low-cost labour and the flexibility that is so sought after by UK shoe brands.
“Today we may earn 50 rupees but there is no guarantee that we will have an income tomorrow. Those who work in the company have some guarantee for work but we don’t. There is no job security” Sumitra, a shoe homeworker earning 7 pence per pair of leather shoe uppers she stitches.
Many brands themselves deny knowledge of homeworkers in their supply chain
and tracing the origin of a pair of shoes back to the workers who made them is virtually impossible due to complex global supply chains and a near-total lack of transparency in the industry.
“Homeworkers provide extremely cheap and flexible labour which suits shoe brands looking to maximise their profits, but is nothing short of exploitation. We need transparency in the industry to ensure the rights of homeworkers are respected and they are paid a living wage. Brands need to recognise homeworkers as part of their supply chains and publish their social audits and due diligence efforts, particularly in regards to treatment of homeworkers, instead of denying all knowledge or responsibility” said Ilana Winterstein, Communications Director for Labour Behind the Label.
‘Stitching Our Shoes’ report is available to download here: https://labourbehindthelabel.org/report-stitching-our-shoes/
ENDS
Contact
Ilana Winterstein, Labour Behind the Label
Communications Director
ilana@labourbehindthelabel.org
Tel: 0117 941 5844
Jane Tate, Homeworkers Worldwide
International Coordinator
janetate@gn.apc.org
Tel: 0113 320 3214/ 07960214332
Notes
1. ‘Stitching Our Shoes’ report is available to download here: https://labourbehindthelabel.org/report-stitching-our-shoes/
2. Labour Behind the Label campaigns for garment workers’ rights worldwide. Labour Behind the Label represent the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) in the UK. The CCC works to improve conditions and support the empowerment of workers in the global garment industry. The CCC has national campaigns in 15 European countries with a network of 250 organisations worldwide.
http://tracking.etapestry.com/t/31523642/1183091806/65863076/0/90567/
http://tracking.etapestry.com/t/31523642/1183091806/65863077/0/90567/
3. Homeworkers Worldwide is a UK based NGO which works to supports
homeworkers around the world in their struggle for rights and recognition. HWW
support grassroots organising with homeworkers, campaigns for companies
to improve conditions for homeworkers in their supply chains and lobbies for
strengthened regulation to better protect homeworkers.
www.homeworkersww.org.uk
4. Change Your Shoes is a partnership of 15 European and 3 Asian organisations. We believe that workers in the shoe supply chain have a right to a living wage and to safe working conditions, and that consumers have a right to safe products and transparency in the production of their shoes.