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Australian Textile, Clothing, Footwear and Allied Industries

Outworkers

In the Australian Textile, Clothing, Footwear and Allied Industries area of study of the course you are asked to investigate and debate a range of issues impacting on the Australian textile industry. This tutorial provides background material and resources to further your knowledge of the role of outworkers in the industry.

Outcomes
This material addresses aspects of the following syllabus outcomes:
H5.2 The student analyses and discusses the impact of current issues on the Australian textiles industry.

Source: Board of Studies NSW, Stage 6 Textiles and Design Syllabus, Preliminary and HSC Courses (1999)

Background to the outworker industry

It is estimated there are 800 000 outworkers supporting the Australian textile industry. "Most are migrant women and most work in conditions which violate basic labor standards, receiving as little as $2.00 an hour, with little access to sick leave, annual leave and workers compensation." (Ho, 2000: 15).

"People do outwork because they don't have many other choices. You end up working very long hours because the rate of pay is very low." (Ho, 2000: 15)

Overseas competition has forced the rate of pay to drop considerably over the last few years. Outworkers or piece workers were often used to meet seasonal demand but now they form the basis of the clothing manufacturing industry. Recently a well-known Australian brand sacked all their clothing manufacturing employees who were paid the award rate and are now outsourcing to outworkers at a fraction of the cost.

The NSW State government plan called Behind the Label and the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union's Homeworkers'Code of Practice are attempts to improve the situation for outworkers.

For further background information see the NSW Department of Industrial Relations fact sheet: Overview of the NSW Government's Clothing Outwork Strategy.

Activity

Investigate and debate with class members the following topic:

The Australian clothing industry would collapse without the use of low-cost outworkers.

Fair Wear poster

Homeworkers' Code of Practice

This is a voluntary scheme where retailers indicate their support of the code which protects outworkers. The code was devised by homeworkers and the lobby group Fairwear . Retailers have been slow to become involved. The code involves an accreditation process and endorsement of the No Sweat Shop label.

Activity

Answer the following questions by referring to the Fairwear web site.

Select the outworkers button to select a case study. Summarise the main issues facing outworkers.
Identify three things you could do as a consumer to help prevent the exploitation of outworkers.

Behind the label

"Behind the label is the culmination of years of research and builds a holistic multi-pronged approach to dealing with exploitation of outworkers," says the Minister of Industrial Relations, Jeff Shaw.

". . . the strategy could allow clothing production to be tracked wherever it is done, ensuring that retailers who outsource work can no longer pretend they don't know where the work has gone, and they don't know the conditions under which it's being made." (Ho, 2000: 15)

Asian women at work

The Asian women at work organisation represents clothing outworkers. It is focused on helping outworkers to get education and training which will expand their employment opportunities.

In addition they try to recover money owed to outworkers when businesses just disappear after the work has been done. Without contracts it's impossible to track down businesses.

Resources

The Independent Commission Against Corruption produced a resource kit: Valuing our work which contains an information sheet on outworkers. The Design and Technology Stage 6 kit, Ethics in Design and Technology, includes a CD-ROM that can be used to stimulate, challenge and encourage discussion on ethical issues.
For more information about these kits, please contact the ICAC by phone: 9318 5999 or toll free 1800 463 909.

References

Ho, C. (2000) A piece of the action, The Sydney Morning Herald, Tuesday, May 16, p15.