The Hindu Business Line : Tirupur exporters want expenses shared by buyers

Coimbatore, Aug.10 The issue of labour compliance insisted upon the Indian garment exporters by international buyers has raised dust yet again. The garment exporters’ representative forum in Tirupur have sought to share costs with the buyers to meet the expenses incurred by the export houses over and above the statutory compliance spends.

Tirupur Exporters Association (TEA), in its recent annual general meeting, took up the issue on behalf of its member-exporters by seeking to share the ‘burden’ of the additional amount to be spend in fulfilling the buyers’ expectations.

In its plea, it said that the exporters are already spending for all the statutory labour provisions and the cost of production would go up further, if they ‘religiously’ fulfilled all that the buyers expected.

Additional burden

The TEA’s reaction is in response to a recent letter from one of the major garment buying houses, which has sought additional labour compliances such as provision of dormitory and canteen facilities for the workers, besides the stipulation on maximum 60 hours of work per week.

The TEA, in a statement said, its AGM having gone through this issue unanimously, felt that since its members are already meeting all the statutory regulations in labour compliance, any additional burden towards fulfilling other than that covered under the land of laws would need to be supported by the buyers by way of sharing the costs.

At the same time, the AGM members have decided to abide by the maximum 60 hours of work per week for the workers engaged by the units (48 hours regular working hours at eight-hour per day and 12 hours of overtime at two hours per day) and the units would pay double wages for the 12 hours as overtime wage.

Another issue

The meet also addressed another raging issue on the labour front in Tirupur — high attrition of skilled labour and employee poaching in the industry. It favoured strict adherence of code of conduct by the garment units. The units recruiting employees from other units should compulsorily insist on relieving orders from the previous employer before absorbing them into their services, it said.

Tirupur knitwear is among the scores of manufacturing industries in the region that face acute skilled labour shortage and high rate of labour turn-out.

More Stories on : Knitwear & Hosiery | Tamil Nadu

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page