Global slowdown turns the heat on six lakh garment workers

Global slowdown turns the heat on six lakh garment workers

Bageshree S. and Sharath S. Srivatsa

Orders come down by 10 per cent; units resort to lay-offs

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Factories are facing problems with deferred purchase

Many are giving extended Deepavali break to workers

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— Photo: K. Murali Kumar

Workers entering their factory in Bangalore in this file photo of April 15, 2008, are facing an uncertain future.

BANGALORE: This Deepavali has not brought cheer to owners and workers of apparel factories here with the slowdown in the world economy affecting the industry. Several factories here are facing problems with deferred purchase.

The orders for factories, which are dependent on exports, mainly to the U.S., have come down by about 10 per cent following deferred buying by big apparel brands.

Industry insiders say that the situation might become worse in the next quarter if the global situation does not improve by then.

Reduced spending

Rising unemployment and reduced spending by the Americans have forced some of the leading brands in the U.S. to close down their outlets, which in turn has affected the apparel industry here. The U.S. accounts for 55 per cent of all global apparel imports.

Sandeep Walia, Chief Executive Officer of Arwind Apparels, told The Hindu that the industry was in “recessionary mode,” and industries were looking at “building in efficiency” and “cutting out all the fat” by cutting down on expenses, such as avoidable air travel, and “increasing plant efficiency”.

While some of the smaller units have closed shop, many are giving extended Deepavali break to workers with a rider that they will make up for this when the orders start pouring in.

The fact that people in Europe and the U.S. are not walking into stores of branded apparels and buying brands such as GAP, Lands End, Ann Taylor, West Seal and J.C. Penny has affected business, said Ravi Kishore, an industry consultant.

“Many of these brands which have businesses in India have deferred purchase,” he said.

Acknowledging that there is an “anticipation of slowdown” by December if the present trend continues, Jagdish N. Hinduja of Gokuldas Images, said that orders were “reasonably good” at present.

Feeling the heat

Meanwhile, the downward trend has turned the heat on about six lakh garment workers in the city.

The industries are resorting to reducing the shift size and giving offs to the employees.

Kumari, a worker in a factory at Gowdanapalya near Uttarahalli, said that production targets were so strict now that workers found it difficult to take a break even to drink water.

She had no work between October 2 and 13 and is yet to know if she will be paid for this period.

Holidays

A company on Mysore Road, which employs 2,700 workers, has been giving week-long holidays to employees by turns.

“They have been paid for this period and told that they should compensate for it when work picks up again,” said K.R. Jayaram of Garment and Textile Workers Union.

Vishalakshi, who worked as a tailor at MD Apparels at Madanayakanahalli, lost her job when the unit closed down. She joined another factory in the same locality, but was paid only Rs. 120 a day as against Rs. 147 paid earlier.

“The market is down and they said I could quit if I was not happy with the pay,” she says. Ms. Vishalakshi is now looking for her third job within six months.

A manager of a unit near Nelamanagala said he had instructions to cut about 10 per cent of the employee strength after strict performance appraisals. Overtime wages had been stopped, he added.

 

Obama harps on 'change'; McCain calls him 'redistributionist'

Obama harps on 'change'; McCain calls him 'redistributionist' Washington, Oct 28 (PTI) With the election day just a week away, Republican presidential nominee John McCain sparred with rival Barack Obama over economy, charging that he was planning a "redistribution" of wealth, while the Democrat stuck to his pet theme of "change" from the "failed" policies. McCain, desperate to gain ground after trailing in a series of opinion polls, again sought to project Obama as a "socialist", a term that still arouses suspicion in the US. Campaigning in the key state of Pennsylvania, he dubbed the Democrat a "redistributor-in-chief", a reference to the allegation that if elected, he will be "redistributing" wealth instead of creating opportunities to increase wealth. "Senator Obama believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that grow our economy and create jobs. He said even though lower taxes on investment help our economy, he favours higher taxes on investment for 'fairness'," McCain said. "There's nothing 'fair' about driving our economy into the ground. We all suffer when that happens, and that is the problem with Senator Obama's approach to our economy." Obama, in campaign trail in the battleground state of Ohio, placed a "closing argument" before voters, asking them to choose "change" over the "failed" Bush-McCain policies that have led the US to present financial mess. Ohio has been hurting due to the financial crisis and both the nominees were pitching their economic plans there, including the routine take on manufacturing and outsourcing. The US is in the midst of the "worst economic crisis since the Great Depression", Obama said. "I can take one more week of John McCain's attacks, but this country can't take four more years of the same failed politics and the same failed policies. It's time to try something new," he said. PTI

 

Woman delivers baby in auto-rickshaw, court gives compensation

Woman delivers baby in auto-rickshaw, court gives compensation New Delhi, Oct 21 (PTI) A woman, who had to deliver her baby in an auto-rickshaw after being denied ambulance service, has been awarded a compensation of Rs 50,000 by the Delhi Consumer Commission which held the government-run ESI hospital guilty for deficiency in service. "These hospitals are meant for providing medical facilities particularly to the weaker sections of the society and making them to run from pillar to post for getting treatment is inexcusable and for such grossest deficiency in service, the hospitals are bound to compensate the patients," Commission President Justice J D Kapoor said. The Commission also into consideration the fact that the new-born baby could not survive due to lack of prompt medical care on the part of the hospital. Jasde Negi, a resident of Trilokpuri in east Delhi, was regularly visiting the Noida-based ESI hospital after she conceived. On June 21, last year, she was denied the ambulance services by the hospital when she was writhing in labour pain. The woman, was refused admission and was rather advised to approach GTB hospital for delivery. The harried woman delivered the baby in an auto-rickshaw on her way to the GTB hospital. The child, unfortunately, could not survive. The ESI hospital took the plea that its two ambulances out of three were out of order and it had no other option but to advise the woman to go to GTB on her own. "Ambulances are such vehicles, which have to be kept in perfect order and available at every given point of time... and the organisation did not pay any heed to such kind of deficiencies," the Commission said in a release. PTI

 

Emotions communicated via instant messaging 'contagious'

Emotions communicated via instant messaging 'contagious' New York, Oct 26 (PTI) Instant messaging, a form of online communication that allows real-time interaction through computers or mobile phones, has nowadays become popular with more and more young people due to its speed and ease of use. Now, a new study has claimed that just as with talking face-to-face, the emotions communicated via instant messaging (IM) are also contagious. Researchers at Cornell University in New York, led by Prof Jeffrey Hancock, have based their findings on an analysis of communication of 44 pairs of volunteers recruited for the study, the 'New Scientist' reported. Prior to taking part in the communication, one person in each pair was told to see either a harrowing film scene or a clip from another film depicting small talk. Subsequently, all the subjects were asked to chat online for 15 to 20 minutes. They were also instructed to find out more about each other and to discuss about something that was worrying them. The researchers found not only that each participant could accurately assess their partner's mood, but that those paired with someone who had watched the harrowing film scene felt sadder than before the chat. PTI

 

In UK, one in five has sex with colleagues

SPICING UP WORK

 

In UK, one in five has sex with colleagues

London: For Britons, it seems that the term “job satisfaction” has a whole new meaning, with one in five admitting to sex at work.
   A recent survey in Britain has revealed that one out of five people has had sex at work — in fact a quarter of men would consider selling bodies for money while one in ten women would sleep with someone to advance their career.
   It found that almost half of all Britons (49%) have had a one-night stand, with men (57%) more likely than women (42%) to have done so. But a generation gap was revealed, with more than two thirds (64%) of those aged between 25 and 44 having had a one-night stand, compared with just 24% of those aged 65 and over.
   Moreover, according to survey commissioned by the Observer newspaper, one in five Britons does not believe that monogamy is desirable, while three out of ten actually do not think that it is natural.
   The survey of over 1,000 adults also found that people remained socially conservative on some issues with 45% of Britons feeling gay couples should not be allowed at all to get married.
   Surprisingly, the survey found that almost one in four Britons (24%) believed homosexual sex should be made illegal, a one per cent increase in the proportion of people who believed this since 2002, the British newspaper reported on Sunday. Likewise, there were indications that Britons are losing their virginity earlier than in previous years.
   Among the 65 plus age group, the average age at which virginity was lost was 19, while the average Briton (41%) loses their virginity between the ages of 16 and 17. A third of people in fact lose their virginity before the age of consent.
   Three out of four Britons are satisfied with their sex life. There is very little difference between the genders or age groups in this respect. AGENCIES

 

 

The corporatization of greed

The corporatization of greed

 

SANTOSH DESAI

 

   Could the global economic crisis be an inflection point of some? Is it possible that what global warming could not do, the global meltdown will manage- make us re-think not just our regulations and our institutions but the path that we are choosing to walk down? For India, in particular, standing as it does at the threshold of economic resurgence, is this an opportunity to ask what its destination should be, instead of being thankful that it is relatively protected on account of its regulated past.
   It appears that one of the biggest lessons learnt in the current crisis is that the financial system cannot regulate itself and that left to its own devices it will push outwards without regard for risks. And given the interdependent nature of the world economy, it will suffice if even a couple of large players go for broke and succeed. The idea that selfinterest will create energy that will propel us forward while our institutions act as checks and balances to ensure that this self-interest does not become self-destruction, is a theoretically sound one but one that has been deeply compromised in practice.
   At a more fundamental level, the growth-centric nature of the economic system creates accomplices out of the institutions meant to control it. The regulatory bodies, the experts, the business press all become shrill cheerleaders for growth and implicitly push the case for more growth while muffling other voices. We have seen this in India in the last few years, with a conspiracy of cheer that brooked no bad news. The India story had a momentum of its own, taking on a reality of its own making. We cheered when 4 out of the top 10 richest people were Indian, not asking if there war something deeply wrong with this. In an article written in this column in March of this year, it had been pointed out that it is interesting that we have begun to embrace the riches of a few as our own while shunning the penury of many as belonging to them. The poor today are an electoral fabrication, vestiges of an India we are eager to leave behind.
   The idea of the economy has been exceptionally well marketed; so much so that we conflate our notion of the business sector with that of the Indian economy which in turn in an act of implicit compression becomes shorthand for India. What we call the economy is an abstract construction, a virtual presence with boundaries marked by the self-interest of those in charge of running it. The interests of the millions that lie outside this definition of the economy are a struggle to accommodate and often when steps are taken in this direction, they are labelled populist. So it was wrong to waive off loans for impoverished farmers but it is all right to look sympathetically at the airline industry’s demand for a bail-out. Somehow, the threatened impoverishment of messieurs Goyal & Mallya makes us readier to act than the suicide of a few thousand farmers.
   The idea that the market can be selfregulating has been exposed as being false. The nature of the joint stock corporation makes it uniquely suited to drive a growth-at-any-cost agenda. Structurally, it atomises ownership, accountability and conscience. The widely held joint stock company in its purest form has no single owner, no one human source that we can attach consequences to. Theoretically, everyone has a share and no one is eventually responsible. The goals of a corporation, the driving ambitions that it nurtures are those of a self-sustaining organism. The corporation is its own justification. The idea of nameless and fragmented shareholders whose interests seemingly drive it, allows the corporation license to drive an agenda divorced from any larger social context.
   The reductive nature of the corporation allows it to multiply endlessly- without any sense of the consequences of its actions. The corporation cannot say no, unless the law explicitly requires it to say so. The owned by no one nature of corporations allows a culture to develop where actions do not need to conform to any rules but those developed internally. People can be fired overnight, fantastic exaggerations can be told about the products that it sells and its financial performance can be window dressed without any great self-doubt. The corporation gives a license to people to behave in ways they never would in their personal lives.
   The corporation cannot be trusted to balance larger needs for it has not been designed with that goal in mind. It is like a software program, with its own in-built heuristic, which it gives it great facility in some areas and very little in others. To depend on it to regulate itself is to expect too much from it.
   The opportunity today is to take a hard look not just at how to make the system work better but to ask as to whether we should be working to build a new system altogether. For the current system is not only unstable but unsustainable. But that would need the courage to detach ourselves from the wisdom of others and to try and find our own truth. It will mean making our own mistakes rather than the paying the price of the mistakes of others. I am not sure we are ready to do that just yet.
   santoshdesai1963@indiatimes.com

 

Sons of the soil got raw deal, says Shobhaa De

Sons of the soil got raw deal, says Shobhaa De

New Delhi: MNS chief Raj Thackeray has found another ally for his Marathi cause with novelist Shobhaa De backing his campaign saying the Sons Of The Soil get a ‘raw deal’ in the state when jobs and other opportunities are concerned.
   “I can understand what he is trying to tap into. I can understand the reason why he has succeeded to this extent. He may have tapped into something very real,” De said in a television interview.
   “In fact, it is everybody else first and Maharashtra last. I don’t blame everybody else and I don’t look on them as outsiders. I think Maharashtrians need to do a great deal of inner looking and thinking to figure out why the city’s complexion has changed,” she said.
   Backing Raj Thackeray, the noted author said, “He has a right to speak what he wants to and the same right to challenge and oppose.” Even while asserting that Thackeray was being political, she said,”It seems that it is only in Maharshtra that Marathi people seem to be the last to get jobs”.
   “I am definitely saying Maharashtrians have got a raw deal, which does not mean that I am in any way supporting violence and endorsing what Raj Thackeray stands for. A raw deal also has a lot to do with the Maharashtrian way of not asserting themselves.”
   “They are too laid back and there is a lot of intellectual arrogance. Maharashtrians are not assertive enough at all,” De said. On if it should be compulsory to speak Marathi in Mumbai, De said, “In West Bengal, people speak Bengali, in Karnataka they speak Kannada, in Tamil Nadu, they speak Tamil. Well the disconnect is happening in Mumbai because people think of Mumbai as belonging to all of India.”
   “It is a question of identity. It is happening everywhere, but Mumbai seems to attract a lot of media attention on account of this. The question of identity is hurting deep down,” she said. When asked if she would consider herself to be a Mumbaikar or a Bombayite, De said, “I am an Indian first.” AGENCIES

 

   ‘In fact, it is everybody else first and Maharashtra last. I
   ‘think Maharashtrians need to do a great deal of thinking to figure out why the city’s complexion has changed
Shobhaa De | NOVELIST