| India's textiles industry clocks an annual turnover of over Rs 210,000 crore. More than a third of this is exported. It employs about 35 million people. And it has made a simple suggestion to the government: Please allow the units producing garments to provide jobs to people for a fixed tenure of 150 days a year at a salary that is above the minimum wages stipulated under law. |
| The plea sounds similar to a scheme that the government itself runs using the tax-payer's money. The National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) Act provides for 100 days of work in a financial year to any one member of a family in 200 districts of 14 states in the country. The textiles industry has argued that it is willing to train the people, provide them guaranteed jobs not for just 100 days, but 150 days in a year, and pay them wages, without being a burden on the exchequer. |
| The argument is that if the government can be allowed to provide guaranteed jobs to people for only 100 days, surely a private sector garment producer should be permitted to provide minimum guaranteed jobs to people for 150 days a year, particularly when the garment producer is willing to bear the cost of training those who come up for such fixed tenure jobs. The reason why the industry needs the government's clearance to provide fixed tenure jobs to skilled or semi-skilled workers is that the country's labour laws at present do not allow this. |
| The Textiles Minister has given a patient hearing to industry representatives on this issue. But nothing seems to have moved. Garment exporters have to depend a lot on seasonal swings in demand. It is often flooded with huge orders, which have to be met within a short period of time. It must have the flexibility to scale up its production capacity at short notice. It, therefore, needs to have the flexibility to employ people on a fixed tenure so that it need not incur wage costs when there is no work. This has become necessary to cut costs in a hugely competitive market. |
| Industry representatives have had a round of meetings with leaders of Left political parties also. The Left leaders have directed them to first convince the trade union representatives before making a case for fixed tenure jobs in the textiles industry. Recognising that the government is unlikely to move ahead on this issue, the textiles industry is now using the NREG argument. But so far no one in the government seems to be convinced. |
| There are three specific demands the industry has made. One, garment producers should be allowed to hire employees on fixed tenures. Two, they should be free to extend the weekly working hours limit of 48 hours, subject to adequate compensation. And three, garment units should be allowed to close down their operations if they can establish that they have no orders. |
| In today's context where there is no movement on labour law reforms, it will be naive to expect the government to even consider a change in the laws to allow closure of unviable garment units. But there can be little debate on the first two suggestions. At present, a request from a garment unit to extend the weekly working hours schedule beyond 48 hours is granted only if the local labour commissioner's office agrees to the request for exemption from the rule. Garment units know that obtaining an exemption is an additional cost because the system is not clean. But if the rules within the existing labour laws are changed to extend the working hours limit in a week, subject to adequate compensation, there will be less discretionary powers for the bureaucracy and garment units will heave a sigh of relief. |
| Similarly, permitting a garment unit to employ people on a fixed tenure should solve a big problem it faces in the busy season to meet a sudden surge in the order book. And no one should really complain as after all the NREG Act too offers guaranteed jobs only for 100 days in a year! |
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