The Hindu Business Line : Alleged harassment of women mill workers

REPORTS of harassment and exploitation of women mill workers that have surfaced recently in the region have kicked up dust with textile mill workers unions planning demonstrations against the incident and one of the prominent textile industry trade bodies, South India Small Spinners Association (Sisspa) here, denying occurrence of any such incidence involving textile mills.

The leaders of the joint action committee of textile workers unions have chalked up a State-wide demonstration on January 20 against engaging women in textile mills, in violation of labour laws and denial of human rights to them.

They have also decided to go on deputation to petition the State Labour Minister and the Labour Secretary on the same day, according to Mr M. Arumugham, the AITUC Tamil Nadu State Vice-President and Secretary of the State JAC of the textiles unions.

"The information we had on the alleged incident of women workers' harassment has shown that they were employed under a make-shift silk yarn godown located in a farm house and it has nothing to do with any textile unit," the President of the Sisspa, Mr K.R. Selvakumar, said.

The latest upheaval on the women labour front is after a recent rescue of a few women workers from an alleged textile mill in Pattinam area in the peripheral Coimbatore and sheltered later at the city based voluntary body Anbu Illam. The migrant women workers, who hailed from Nagapattinam, complained of ill treatment by their employer, who made them to work for unspecified number of hours.

Countering Sisspa claims, Mr Arumugham pointed out that engaging women workers and denying them basic wages by the textile industry is widely prevalent in the State and as such the claim by the industry that the incident is unrelated to the textile industry is not `true'.

He pointed out that all textile units, including the organised ones, have resorted to employing women workers under the classification of `camp coolies' by giving them lowest wages, thereby displacing the permanent workers.

He claimed that textile mills put up in the past six years or so have gone for 100 per cent women workers.

But Sisspa President on the other hand claims the spread of textile mills in rural areas gave job opportunity for the rural women, thereby enhancing their living conditions.

He said the women workers were aware of the trends in the industry and hence could not be misled on wages or on the quality of food or shelter as made out by the `vested' interests. They do not accept employment offers from textile mills that easily.

Many mills take care of all the needs such as quality food, medical facility and safe shelter. As such, a stray incident that too "happening in a place unrelated to textile sector" should not be allowed to tarnish the image of the textile industry as a whole, the Sisspa President noted.