Two Pakistani trade unionists explain in interview why the EU supply-chain directive must be unblocked.
Felix Sassmannshausen: In 2012, catastrophic incidents led to the deaths of many textile workers in Pakistan. More than 260 workers died in a fire at a factory belonging to Ali Enterprises, a company which supplied the German discount retailer Kik, among others. The struggle to hold the companies accountable was difficult. A year ago, the German supply-chain act came into force. Does it improve the situation?
Zehra Khan: Yes, definitely. Before, there was no way to hold the big brands accountable for human-rights violations. Now we have the law and the companies are liable. Workers are better protected and a fire like in 2012 is less likely and they can now use the law to directly file complaints with German authorities if they are confronted with rights violations in the workplace in Pakistan.
Nasir Mansoor: But the German law still has its limits; we have a long way to go. For example, companies continue to circumvent the law by using subcontractors and not registering their workers.
Khan: That’s a big problem for us. Because in order to join a trade union, employees have to be officially registered with their employer. They need official documents and have to register with the labour authorities. One of our main struggles is to force companies to hand over the appointment letters. Then the workers could also go to court and claim their rights.
What is the general situation like for trade unions in Pakistan?
Khan: The situation is difficult. There is an alliance of corporations, the labour agency, political parties and employers and yellow unions formed by the companies. They are all on the same side and have everything: money, weapons, the state apparatus. We only have solidarity and are fighting for our rights, which are enshrined in the constitution and even in the labour laws passed by the government, to be implemented at all. We are fighting for the minimum wage to be respected and for our right to social security.
Mansoor: We’re faced with many challenges. According to official statistics, the workforce has a size of around 90 million people in employment in Pakistan, and there are probably even more. The informal sector is huge: almost 70 per cent of the workforce is not officially employed. And only a very small proportion is unionised. Due to the widespread informal working structures in the textile and clothing industry, we assume that the rate is perhaps 0.5 per cent. This has become even worse during the coronavirus pandemic. Many factories that actually belonged to the formal sector began to employ their workers informally.
Khan: This has mainly affected women, who we want to reach with the Home-Based Women Workers’ Federation. We officially founded the union in 2009 after years of preparation. We now have over 4,000 members. Many women in the garment and textile industry work at the bottom of the supply chain. They are hired through third-party companies that often do not grant them any rights and pay less than the minimum wage. They have no written contracts and are not registered with social-security or pension schemes. If they become pregnant, they usually lose their job immediately.
Reaching them is probably not easy.
Khan: Yes, it is difficult. They don’t work in a factory where you can talk to them directly, but spread out in their homes. That’s why we concentrated on areas where we could make direct contact. We went to New Karachi Town, a part of Karachi where there are many factories surrounded by living quarters. We went door-to-door and talked to the women workers, asking them to come to our meetings to talk about their working conditions.
Often the men wouldn’t allow their wives to go outside. In Pakistan, religious values that restrict women are very strong. They have to stay at home and are not allowed to talk to strangers. When we approached them, their husbands threatened them and said: ‘We will sell you if you go to the meeting.’ This is human trafficking. But in every society there are brave women who are curious and with whom we can meet. They are now helping us to expand and inform the community, including the women working at the subcontractors.
What size company are we talking about?
Khan: It’s difficult to say, because we don’t have any precise data. In Karachi, for example, we have seven industrial zones. They have shifted their entire units like the sewing unit and even the packing unit to the third-party contract system. There are no official figures. But the biggest one employs more than 10,000 workers. Most of the suppliers sell their goods to Europe and the United States.
What can human-rights organisations, workers and trade unions in Germany and Europe do to support your efforts to improve working conditions?
Mansoor: The planned European [directive] on corporate-sustainability due diligence must be implemented. It is better than the German law because it includes companies in the textile industry with more than 250 employees, for example, if they have an annual turnover of more than €40 million. The German law is currently limited to [firms with more than] 1,000 employees. Trade unions and left-wing parties must increase the pressure on their governments. We must make it very clear that anyone who rejects the European supply-chain act, like the [Free Democratic Party] in Germany, is in favor of slave labour.
Khan: But in the long term, we need a global law. To achieve this, we need to strengthen solidarity between workers from the south and the north. And we need more co-operation between trade unions, labour-rights and human-rights organisations to put a stop to capital and its crimes.
Felix Sassmannshausen is a journalist and editor at the German newspaper nd.Der Tag. His topics are trade unions, class politics, the economy and labour-market policies. He holds a doctoral degree in political science (legal and democratic theory).