Madras High Court dismisses petitions seeking stay order on minimum wages for garment industry

19 September, 2011, Chennai: The Madras High Court today dismissed a batch of writ petitions filed by garment industry manufacturers seeking a stay order on the 2004 minimum wages notification for the tailoring industry. This much awaited verdict is a relief to thousands of women workers who can now hope for better remuneration. After the government declared a minimum wages through a notification in 2004, more than 14 garment manufacturers filed a petition in the High Court seeking a stay order. In these seven years the state government made no effort to get the stay order lifted despite repeated petitions from the Garment and Fashion Workers’ Union, GAFWU, one of the petitioners challenging the stay order.

The Minimum Wages Act, 1948 a legislation meant to protect workers and guarantee a living wage, requires the state government to appoint a committee to decide minimum wages and revise it every 5 years. However, in the case of the garment industry, the wages have effectively not been revised since 1994. The export garment industry in Tamil Nadu employs several lakhs of workers who work in precarious working conditions and remain impoverished due to the low wages.Eight out of ten workers in the garment industry are women, many of whom are between the ages of 17-25 or women who are supporting families. The average worker does not get more than Rs. 3000 in a month. There are no annual increments. The real wage in the garment industry keeps falling with inflation.

In 2010, GAFWU filed a petition asking for the interim stay to be vacated immediately on the grounds that it is violative of fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution under Article 23 and that any factory irrespective of its size or volume of business which does not pay the minimum wages has no right to exist. This petition also challenged the claim that any agreement in effect between the industry and a particular group of workers which is lower than stipulated minimum wages is null and void. The petition also drew attention to the fact that even the minimum wage notified in 2004 does not come close to meeting the 15th ILC norms for setting a minimum wage. As per the 2004 notification wages range between Rs1825 for unskilled workers to Rs. 2400 for skilled workers.

The prevailing wages in the Tamil Nadu (less than Rs. 100 per day) is much lower to that in Gurgaon (Rs. 240 per day) and in Bangalore(Rs. 149 per day), the other two important hubs for the garment industry in India. In 2008, the garment industry contributed about Rs.2500 crores to foreign exchange earning.

GAFWU welcomes the verdict and demands immediate implementation of the minimum wage notified in 2004 by all employers in the garment industry.

Meghna Sukumaran, Organising Secretary GAFWU
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