Seeking to get their voices heard, teenagers and women working in the textile industries of Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore, Tirupur and Erode districts, backed by a citizen’s committee formed by a group of labourers’ welfare organisations and NGOs, have for the first time submitted their demands to the candidates, contesting this year’s Assembly polls from the constituencies in these districts.
Submitting the demands on Monday, coordinator of the committee C Nambi, said, “There has been no representation from this section of labourers to talk about their issues and demands. A group of 12 organisations have formed a citizen’s committee and have submitted the demands of adolescent and women workers of the textile industry in Coimbatore, Tirupur and Erode.
“We have so far been able to reach out to some of the candidates and political parties. We will also get in touch with some of the senior functionaries from each of the political parties in the coming days to submit these demands,” he added.
The 14-point list of issues raised by the committee included age restriction for employment, minimum wages for labourers, enforcing labour welfare laws, maintaining the limit of apprentices as per the law, cutting short the tenure of apprentices, monitoring hostels and stringent laws against child labour and sexual harassment.
“Contradictory definitions of age of children in various legislations should be removed… and employment of children below the age of 18 in all forms of labour should be banned,” read the six-page booklet of demands.
One of the committee’s key demands include ensuring a minimum wage of Rs 15,000 per month to all casual labourers, including apprentices, in the textile industry. It also quoted the Apprenticeship Act, 1965, stating that the percentage of apprentices in any factory should not exceed 10 per cent, while their number in fact is allegedly 70 per cent. The list of demands also sought the reduction of the tenure of an apprentice from the current three years to one year, like it was until 1984.
Its other points included need for hostels for women employed in textile mills, registered under the Tamil Nadu Hostels and Homes for Women and Children Act, 2014, and stringent laws against child labour and sexual harassment in textile mills.
