One Solution to the Tailor Crisis

Last week I was supposed to launch my Monsoon Collection in the store. I had the pictures from the photo-shoot ready to mail out along with my press kits, I had started telling customers at the store to lookout for our new collection on September 6th, and I had planned a trip to Ahmedabad and Jaipur later this month to meet with suppliers after I launched the collection in the store. I had a big problem though: the clothes weren’t ready. In the last month one of my tailors has taken indefinite paternity leave, one has left to join a more lucrative job closer to his home, and another left to move back home to be with his wife and kids where he will take up a job as an auto driver.

I have spent the last two weeks calling everyone I know in the garment industry, but everyone tells me that their situation is similar: it’s tough to recruit new tailors, the existing ones don’t show up for work regularly, many of them prefer to work at a small tailoring shop where the hours are flexible and they get paid per piece (which means no one to question quality as long as they are churning out sari blouses by the hour).

Or, they could leave the tailoring profession altogether for more lucrative jobs elsewhere.

There is a dearth of quality labour in India but the economy is growing and every business needs people. Salesmen at Lifestyle barely speak English, let alone understand what products are stocked there, but I am willing to bet they get paid more than the average tailor. Plus who wouldn’t like to work in a large air-conditioned mall rather than slog at a sewing machine? Large banks need “office boys” and chain supermarkets need cashiers and helpers at their stores, so all the large export factories who need tailors at reasonable salaries have moved far out of the city, where the job options are agriculture, manual labour at a factory, and now tailoring.

I met with the principal of the Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) two weeks ago. AEPC was set up by the government to train and supply the garment industry with manpower at every level- tailors, cutters, pattern makers, and supervisors. The principal said they are finding it hard to recruit tailors because being tailor is no longer a very lucrative option compared to other jobs that are available in the market.

I took that as sign (one among many) and my solution has been to increase my average salary for tailors. Obviously moving out of the city to attract tailors who live in villages isn’t an option for me, but then again people are hopefully buying my clothes because of the style and the fit – my profit isn’t determined by price alone unlike for many export factories. I hired two new tailors from AEPC (we’ll train them up to our quality standards and I can only hope that they stay as we give them a raise for every stage of improvement) and I gave my existing tailors a finder’s fee for using their network to find new recruits and that resulted in another two tailors. Now I am back in production for my monsoon collection.

Here is a preview of what will be in the store on October 5th:

Family Labour

I read a news story a few days ago about an Irish company (Primark) that cancelled a huge order from a knitwear exporter in Tirupur because they had heard the exporter was using child labour. It turns out that the export unit itself doesn't employ anyone underage, but they had outsourced some embroidery to a refugee camp where families were working together to complete the job. A follow up article the next day revealed that while children were present when the embroidery was being done, they were not actually doing any of the embroidery themselves. However a story like this has the potential to make Primark look like an exploiter of cheap labour, so the only decision left for the company was to cancel all their orders.

The first thing that struck me when I read the article was how family labour in a traditional setting can easily be misinterpreted as a system that forces children to work from a young age. Some of our traditional systems are at conflict with today’s laws and “industry standards”, and it is difficult for grass roots level organizations to meet the standards.

Now before I am misinterpreted, let me clarify that I am not for one second condoning child labour. I am anti child labour, anti sweat shop, and pro healthy and sanitary working conditions. I also think that for large factory-like environments (such as the exporter in Tirupur) having an acceptable standard is a good thing. However there is a difference between a company employing children for labour versus a family working on something where children are occasionally asked to chip in. With traditional textile crafts that are handed down from generation to generation, it would be impossible for the children to never be involved in the process while growing up.

Take for example my leheria supplier whose house and factory I visited last year. My supplier’s father had worn a national award for his leheria (tie-dye) work and since then the family has been invited to craft exhibitions all over India. My supplier must have been exposed to the craft at a young age but I don’t know the details of when he started working for his father’s company. I’m using the word “company” very loosely here- they live in an intricate weave of small lanes in a large neigbourhood where every house doubles as a mini-factory or store of some sort. The ground floor of their house (one large room and a shed) is their factory, where fabric is stored, tie-dyed, dried, and packed. The family lives upstairs, but during the day the children wander around the shed playing with the dyes and the older children may help with a few tasks on a Saturday morning. For the most part the work is done by the two sons (both in their 40s) and a few of their employees.

Aside from my selfish interest in wanting the next generation to learn the ropes so that Brass Tacks will always have a leheria supplier, they too have dreams of growing their business and that would have to involve help from family. Would the operations going on in their hall and shed pass any international standard for health and labour conditions? I’m not sure, but I do know that it would take time, years of good business and exposure for them to have nicer facilities in a larger building with an environmentally friendly way of disposing their dyes, and large, safe utensils for dyeing their fabric (right now they boil the dye and dip the cloth into it using thick rubber gloves). Pass or fail, their craft cannot be learned easily and since it is a family business, it would make sense that their children learn the craft at a young age. That’s not child labour, it’s called training.

I can only hope that with time and with the help of organizations and buyers (like Brass Tacks), my suppliers can have a nicer set up with better systems and a creative way to show visitors that the children are not working full time. Because if my suppliers want their business to grow and supply fabric at a large scale, they will have to find a way to pass these standards.

Below are a few pictures of the work done at my supplier's workshop in Jaipur.