"In TN’s Garment Factories, Heat Stress Is Leaving Women Workers Sick, Fatigued", 9 June 2024

With temperatures reaching 43ºC by mid-April this year, 5.2 degrees above normal, the textile workers of Erode district, a major textile production hub in Tamil Nadu, have been reporting frequent fainting spells, heat rash, yeast infection, and urinary tract infection.

“This year we are seeing an increased number of cases of workers with heat-related stress and dehydration,” said Thivyarakini, state president of the Tamil Nadu Textile and Common Labour Union (TTCU). “In the first week of May, 13 women garment workers reported to me that they were having rashes and increased white discharge. Underreporting of heat illness in the workplace is very common, resulting in the underestimation of the impact of heat exposure.”...

The effort to meet production targets in this heat puts many women at risk. Bhagyalakshmi*, a tailor in a garment factory in Dindigul, said the workers were expected to produce 1,000 units of garments per day, a high target given their uncomfortable work conditions...

The indifference of supplier companies and fashion brands to the plight of the workers means that workers are often labouring over long hours to meet tight delivery schedules in uncomfortable safety gear with poor access to water, sanitation and health facilities, we found in conversations with workers and labour rights activists.

Ganga*, a spinning mill worker in Dindigul, complained that her employers asked workers to get their own ORS packets to deal with dehydration...

The extreme weather being experienced with increased frequency is a direct result of climate change and its impact will affect lower-income countries the most – those in southern Asia and western Africa are predicted to be the worst-affected...

“Many factories do not have working fans or coolers to combat the heat and there is no proper ventilation. The temperature inside garment factories is a few degrees higher because many use tin sheets for roofing. During summer, bathrooms often do not have water in the flush or tap, creating an unhygienic environment,” said Thivyarakini.

She also pointed to the discomfort of working in summer months in the outfits mandated by factories. “Women workers feel suffocated in the multiple layers of clothing, including compulsory uniforms in certain factories and overcoats on top of salwars and sarees, masks, and caps,” she said.

To avoid using the bathroom, and also because the water is of poor quality, women workers often avoid drinking water and risk dehydration. Bathroom breaks are also severely curtailed and monitored by factory management...

Many of them also skip meals. “The lunch we bring gets spoiled in this heat. The management knows this but we still have to work long hours and deliver,” said Lakshmi, a spinning mill worker in Dindigul. The lack of water and food saps the energy levels of the women whose work is anyway physically demanding.

There are women workers, such as Hema*, a tailor in a garment factory in Dindigul, who delay their periods with medication to avoid having to use toilets without a steady water supply. “The factory during the summer months feels like a pressure cooker,” said Hema. “ I know I can’t handle this extreme heat and my period pain together. If I take leave for my periods, I feel I will lose my job.”

Basic first aid for heat sickness is often unavailable in many factories, say workers...

For women, the heat is particularly hellish because it brings on rashes, urinary and vaginal infections that, in many cases, go untreated because workers’ have neither the time nor the wages to address them...

The impact of heat does not necessarily manifest immediately and on the factory floor and this means that it remains unreported, said Rajalakshmi Ramprakash, a public health expert. “Heat exhaustion is slow and insidious – its impact can be both in the short-term and in the long-term. Unlike common occupational accidents and injuries, the physical results of heat exhaustion like dizziness, nausea, and fainting, might happen after a worker reaches home,” she said...

An HR manager at a garment factory said on condition of anonymity that though the maximum permitted temperature in a garment factory is around 30ºC, mid-March onwards this goes up to 36ºC and beyond. “In the afternoons, it goes up to even 40ºC. I know that it is very difficult to work in these conditions, but we have orders which we have to deliver on time – or else we will run into a loss, and won’t be able to pay the workers,” said the official...

A production manager said that the excessive heat impacts productivity in summer months but he cannot afford to be compassionate – by offering more breaks or allowing fewer work hours – because of delivery deadlines. “If brands are going to penalise us for delays, how can I create a better workplace for my workers?” the manager said...

They set high targets, tight deadlines, penalised delays even in the most dire of circumstances, and refused to pay textile suppliers. In turn, suppliers forced women workers to work at unsustainably low wages in poor conditions, thus putting their health and lives at risk. This crisis is likely to worsen as heat conditions worsen.

A production manager at a garment factory in Tamil Nadu said it is time suppliers and buyers factored the impact of climate change into their costs.

“As climate change worsens, I expect there will be longer and harsher summers in Tamil Nadu. We will have to re-think our factory’s overall design to support workers and maintain productivity levels during these months. Already, water is scarce and we have to purchase expensive drinking water. All this will increase the cost of production and garment suppliers who have low profit margins cannot bear the entire cost of it, without the contribution of fashion brands,” the manager said.

Current purchasing practices need to be changed to ensure that this kind of exploitation is not possible. Lavinia Muth, the civil society representative to the steering committee of the German Partnership for Sustainable Textiles, said that brands now need to acknowledge the reality of climate change.

“Brands must acknowledge their complicity when garment workers collapse from heat stress. Purchasing contracts with sanction clauses when delivery dates are not met exacerbate this exploitation. I’ve seen it first-hand during audits and discussions with suppliers,” said Muth. “The result is repression and stress on the factory floor.”