#9 Home-based garment workers are being exploited
Doing their homework pays off for most people. For a growing segment of workers in the garment industry in B.C. and across Canada, however, home work does not pay much. Home-based workers, mainly Asian or other third-world immigrant women, work out of their homes on a piecework basis often for less than minimum wage. They supply their own machines and electricity and are responsible for any equipment repairs. They earn an average of $4.64 an hour (the minimum wage in B.C. is $7 per hour) and receive no benefits such as unemployment insurance, Canada Pension Plan benefits, overtime, vacation pay, or workersą compensation.
The Canadian garment industry employs about 60,000 people. Thirty thousand are unionized, the rest are not. B.C.'s garment industry employs approximately 10 per cent of the industry's national workforce and for the past seven years has had annual sales of $230 million.
Vas Gutnaratna, of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) indicates home-based garment workers in B.C. comprise a further 1,000 - 3,000 members of the workforce and the numbers are growing. The exact numbers are unknown as the workers are often paid under the table and are not registered as employees of any company.
Home-based workers are generally employed by one of the many smaller shops in B.C and are a result of the need for manufacturers to remain competitive against offshore manufacturers, particularly the Southeast Asian and Central American companies. In an effort to keep costs low and to respond quickly to market needs, B.C. manufacturers contract out work which is further sub-contracted, from manufacturer to local factories to home-based workers. The front-end retailers and manufacturers are not responsible for the homeworkers as technically they are not the employers. The sub-contractors do not register their employees thereby evading legal responsibilities. The home-based workers end up being exploited.
Workers are recruited through word of mouth or through ads in ethnic papers. The majority are women of colour from China, India, Vietnam, Korea and other underdeveloped nations who live and work within their small ethnic communities. Gutnaratna states the women come from countries where they have been oppressed. They generally don't speak English and have little knowledge of their rights. The workers fear they may lose their jobs if they complain or if they try to unionize. As in other provinces, there is an Employment Standards Branch in the provincial government to help non-unionized employees deal with workplace problems. However, any complaints must be made by the worker. The branch does not monitor the garment industry for infractions of the Employment Standards Act.
Attempts to help homeworkers either through the unions or the branch are complicated by the lack of concrete information concerning the workers. The government of B.C., following in the footsteps of Ontario, passed a bill revising the Employment Standards Act in November 1995. Employers must register all homeworkers. Home-based workers must also be paid minimum wage, overtime, and vacation pay. Contributions to the Canada Pension Plan and Unemployment Insurance must be made by the employer on behalf of the employees. Penalties of $500 per employee can be levied if an employer does not register a worker.
Kevin Rooney, a spokesman for the Employment Standards Branch, indicates it will hold town hall meetings in conjunction with the Garment Workers Manufacturers Association and UNITE to inform employers and employees of their rights and responsibilities. However, limited staff means the industry canąt be more actively monitored. In the end, the onus is still on the employer to register its employees and on the employees to lay complaints. If the branch doesn't know about a problem, it can't deal with it. So home-based workers, while now protected by law, are still open to exploitation.
Sources:
€ The Clothes Behind Closed Doors, The Georgia Straight, April 14-21, 1995 (Dirk Beck)
PCC Researcher: Susan Wilson Murray
Summary of Coverage
Several stories appeared in the Canadian mainstream media that referred to exploitation of garment workers in other countries, but we found only three mentions of the situation of Canadian garment workers working out of their homes in Canada (The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star and The Montreal Gazette). Each of these stories mentioned the situation briefly and did not deal with it extensively. The nominated story appeared in The Georgia Straight. On 26 Jan 1996, CBC-TV aired a story on the plight of home-based garment workers in Canada.