Article written and submitted by James Boston of Fashion Source.
While the final outcome always had an uneasy air of inevitability about it, for many a glimmer of hope persisted until the end; the hope that a Senate Committee charged with reviewing the Fair Work Amendment (Textile, Clothing and Footwear Industry) Bill 2011, would realise just how damaging the Bill will be to the TCF industry and the outworkers it purports to protect.
A hope that the Labor senators, tasked with the well-meaning pursuit of ending outworker exploitation, would stumble across someone in their review process with an ounce of industry knowledge or business sense. Instead they were showered with submissions from labour and human rights organisations that quoted out-of-date research papers and unsubstantiated claims such as “outworkers are paid on average $3-4 per hour.”
James Boston is the Managing Editor of ATF Magazine, Editor, Publisher and Founder of Window Furnishings Australia, Online editor fashionsource.com.au, textilesource.com.au, and most recently Editor, Publisher and Founder of OR Magazine. Narrowly avoiding a career in finance, James has spent the last decade watching, analysing and writing about the Australian TCF industry in both his own publications as well as a number of mainstream titles.
Why is it that not one Government Senator questioned these claims? It wouldn’t have been hard. Perhaps something along the lines of “If the average Australian outworker is paid $3-4 an hour (and China is now claiming an hourly minimum wage of around $2 an hour), why is 93 per cent of garment production offshore?”
The TFIA and a number of industry members did make written submissions. None disagreed that legislation is required to avoid exploitation of vulnerable workers. However, significantly, most were focused on the problems this legislation in its current form will cause for the outworkers and the industry (such as preventing outworkers from acting as independent contractors). But it seemed that the Senate committee did not give weight to any such concerns, preferring the testimony of labour academics instead.
The ultimate insult in the review process came when the TFIA was refused permission to appear at the Committee’s public hearing, instead giving the floor to Fairwear Australia, the TCFUA, DEEWR and the Australian Industry Group (AIG). From all reports, as the sole business representative, the AIG pushed the issue of independent contractors, but, without the in-depth knowledge of the TCF sector to which the TFIA is privy, offered very little in terms of industry specific arguments.
The committee also recommended that that the bill be amended to remove the requirement of a TCF outworker to take “reasonable steps” to recover unpaid amounts from a responsible entity and instead require that a TCF outworker “believes an entity is an indirectly responsible entity.” Translated from government speak, what this means is that outworkers can now pursue any disputed pay claims up the supply chain.
Keeping this in mind, why would Myer or David Jones want to take the risk of stocking an emerging, locally manufactured label, when to do so would carry the liability of paying out any of the label’s outworkers if the label was to fall over, fail to pay the correct award, or even fail to pay the correct overtime rate? The fact that this type of concern wasn’t even raised in the review process shows that the entire review was flawed in its design. A review in name only.
You can read more on the TCF Fair Work Amendment HERE.
You can also read about Lou Lorkin of Melbourne Made Clothing who has set up an online campaign and Facebook page titled `Save the Australian Fashion Industry’ in the wake of the new amendment passing HERE.
This article originally appeared in the March/April 2012 editon of ATF – Australasian Textiles and Fashion (www.atfmag.com)
I will never again make a single garment in oz again. If any wants to produce small runs in china drop me a line. I have factory in china! We produce both men’s and women’s, knit and woven.
Great article James, very well explained and this will be just the situation that will finally unite this industry. Only correction to your article is that Lou did not start the ” save Australian fashion industry Facebook, but she has been a very strong supporter thru this whole farce.
Very concerned young fashion employees are responsible for this as they have chosen fashions as their future and are concerned for it, rightfully so.
This new legislation where outworkers can no longer be contracted by the hour as independents, means that outworkers will have to be employed for a minimum of 20 hours and be entitled to benefits such as leave and superannuation.
All good for the outworker to receive these benefits, that’s if businesses could afford to employ them anymore. Yes there are some that are being exploited, but not all outworkers are being exploited.
Most of the well known Australian Fashion Labels all start off sampling and producing in Australia, as its encouraged not only by the retailers like DJ’s and Myers, but consumers as well.
Labels tend to start manufacturing off shore only when they have a strong enough brand awareness and retention.
Putting a strain in this part of the supply chain will ultimately hinder many grass roots designers from fulfilling their dreams and starting a fashion label.
Yes they can all start by immediately manufacturing off shore, but labels that do this hardly gain any traction in the market.
And that’s not good news even for off shore manufacturing agents, because in the long run Australia may not have many Fashion Brands anymore, this means off shore manufacturing agents will suffer in the long run too.
We’d all be taken over by Zara, H&M, Topshop and other major fast fashion brands which they all have their own ability to manufacture off shore and will the Australian Government slap additional taxes or impose legislation on these companies for exploiting workers overseas?