Tea, Garments Win Buyer Approval for Labour Practices in Sri Lanka
1 Aug 2007
The Sri Lankan biggest exports, tea and garments, are gaining global recognition for ensuring workers' rights and welfare. Products like "ethical teas" and "ethical bras" (lingerie), which recognise labour rights in the workplace, have gained significant consumer loyalty in U.S. and European markets. The US is by far Sri Lanka’s largest customer buying almost 58% of the total export production, followed closely by the EU that takes around 38%.
Ashroff Omar, chairman of the Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF), says that when foreign buyers visit Sri Lankan garment factories, they are surprised by the standards. Here garment factories, once nothing more than sweatshops like in Hong Kong and China with dismal rest rooms and unsanitary toilets, have transformed, with some even installing automatic cash machines and providing accommodations for workers.
Earlier this year, the garment industry launched a multi-million-rupee image-building programme to position the country globally as an ethical clothing producer. The collective industry label and image building campaign, called "Made in Sri Lanka: Garments without Guilt", is aimed at differentiating Sri Lanka from mounting competition, particularly China and India, by carving out an "ethical" niche.
Equally, welfare for plantation workers has undergone a radical change in terms of housing facilities. Tea is the second largest commodity export. The once marginalised labourers, who lived in tiny, shanty-type accommodation called "line rooms", now reside in modern apartment blocks. Even the post-office has started delivering letters to their doorsteps and workers have been allotted separate house numbers.
The trade unions as well as the NGOs agree on the fact that there has been a certain amount of improvement among the workers in these sectors. Although an NGO representative points out to the fact that 30 percent of the near 500,000 plantation workers still live in dilapidated housing.
One of the largest tea plantation company in Sri Lanka, the Kelani Valley Plantations Ltd (KVPL), part of the giant Hayleys Group in Sri Lanka, has vowed to adhere to the United Nations principles of good governance at the launch of its ethical tea brand, the first in the world.
The company was recently invited by the UN Global Compact (GC) that was launched by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, to hold a press conference at the UN headquarters in New York about its work as a company, which promotes social responsibility.
It may not be the case in all plantations in Sri Lanka but the situation is improving, with estates desperate to attract youth seeking more dignified jobs, and the need to retain the staff.
Sri Lanka's MAS Holdings, a world class lingerie manufacturer that supplies to major brands such as Victoria's Secret, Gap, Marks & Spencer and Nik, is stepping up ethical standards in programmes empowering women, spending three to four percent of costs on employee and philanthropic programmes.
Its "Women Go Beyond" programme, for example, is aimed at educating and empowering its over 90 percent female workforce, who are provided transport to work, free meals, medical care and on-site banking at all MAS plants in nine countries. It also funds hospitals, schools and scholarships in the villages where its plants are located.
The JAAF expects that such ethical branding strategy would help meet consumer expectations and make buyers feel more comfortable with their products.
No wonder Sri Lanka’s Human Development Indicators are much higher than its other counterparts!
Resource: www.ipsnews.net
Released on: 1 August, 2007
