Mill upset poor girls
Thousands of teenage girls in Tamil Nadu are lured by textile mills with promises of good money are exploited for labour and return empty-handed.The advertisements by the textile mills project a rosy picture. Earn Rs. 40,000 and work as apprentice for three years, they say. They also promise to give tasty food daily and comfortable accommodation in the hostel. Air-conditioning is also provided.In at least 17 districts in Tamil Nadu thousands of teenage girls have been lured by agents to work in private textile mills, under what they call the “sumangali” scheme.Mills take advantage of the “apprenticeship” provision of the Model Standing Orders under the Tamil Nadu Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Rules, 1947, and use it to popularize the “sumangali scheme” among poor families with teenage daughters. Mills enjoy complete autonomy in adopting the scheme in their own way once the Joint Commissioner of Labour has certified their separate standing orders.In many of the leading mills up to 70 per cent of the workers are apprentices recruited under this “scheme”.The girls join the mills after signing a three-year bond that promises a lump-sum amount at the end of the period. While the offers vary from mill to mill, the lump-sum amount ranges from Rs.20,000 to Rs.50,000. Usually, the lump-sum is linked to the stipend; the higher the lump-sum, the lower the stipend.
The girls live in hostels on the mill premises. They are paid a daily stipend ranging from Rs.25 to Rs.80. A “nominal” amount is deducted from the stipend towards food expenses. The mills also offer “incentives”, such as a hike in the stipend, to “hardworking” girls.The working conditions of the girls are now under the scrutiny of the State government. The Tamil Nadu Joint Action Council (JAC) of Textile Trade Unions pointed out that the labour enforcement authorities had failed to contain the abuse of the apprenticeship scheme and the monitoring committees were only a perfunctory response to their demands.The government has set up monitoring committees following protests by trade unions that the mills exploited the girls by extracting forced labour, denying statutory benefits and restricting their freedom by confining them to the mills. They also expressed concern about sexual harassment.
