Labour in Karachi’s Fast Fashion Industry
Fawad Hasan interviews labour organizer Yaseen Jhullan on the issues and demands of garment workers in Karachi
Salam, Namaste, and Ya Ali Madad friends,
I am Fawad Hasan, and today I am with Yaseen Jhullan, who is a (garment) worker himself, and has been organizing labour for a long time. He is well known in the industrial area of Karachi. Today we will be speaking with him about the exploitation of workers in the fast fashion industry (in Karachi), and talk about what sort of labour laws are being broken by factory owners.
Without further delay, we will start the interview so that we can understand today’s situation. Before starting I want to recite these some poetry by Habib Jalib:
You 100 million people,
You who are wary of living
Such a mere few
rob you of your rights
Death to such living!
Is this even Life?
The unconscious, too,
Call you ignorant
These ignorants, I often think,
Which air do they breathe?
And those who sing praises
Whose only worry is that
You, o people, not emerge
With your flags of war.
So how much longer the silence?
O you living prisons,
You 100 million people
These mills, these estates,
Whose blood do they feed on?
The armies in their barracks
On whom do they prey?
The fruits of whose labour
Sustain the concubines?
From the slums and shanty towns
Who is wailing, what are these cries?
When, at their youthful peak,
Dance the fields,
Who is the one with tearful eyes?
And who is the one who smiles?
How I wish you understand,
How I wish you understand,
How I wish you may know,
All you 100 million people.
FH: Thank you, Yaseen, for giving us time today. Can you please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about when you started working in these factories? And what’s keeping you busy these days?
YJ: My name is Mohammad Yaseen, and I am from the Jhullan caste. I have been working in the Korangi Industrial area for almost ten to twelve years. And for the last two years I have been the Chief Organizer for the Sindh Sujagi Mazdoor Federation. I am part of the workers’ struggle.
The Sindh Sujagi Mazdoor Federation leads a protest in Karachi’s Korangi Industrial Area. Image: Author
FH: Ok tell us a bit about what sort of problems you faced while working. What are the major problems that workers face in these factories?
YJ: The major problems I’ve witnessed inside the factory are that, for one there are no canteens or proper places to eat for the workers. For a worker to reproduce themselves food is a fundamental need, and without proper food they become weak and are unable to sustain their work which is quite physical in nature. The second major problem is the sub-contracting system (thekeydaari nizam). Under this, the worker is neither given an EOBI card nor a social security card. They don’t get gratuity or bonuses. They don’t get anything. They don’t even get paid the minimum wage, even though the law clearly states that a worker hired through a contractor should be paid the same wages as a company would pay its regular workers. That’s what the law says. But these workers don’t get that rate.
FH: Before we move forward, I would like to tell our listeners that according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, the textile industry is seeing steep growth. In this fiscal quarter alone, the industry grew by 27%. But this growth does not translate into greater wages for the workers, in fact their condition is getting worse by the day. Yaseen bhai, please tell us which international brands are serviced through the factories in this area?
YJ: The large brands that operate here are H&M, Mango, Zara, Primark, and many other renowned international brands. But the largest contracts are for Zara, H&M, Mango and Primark.
FH: So do the owners of these renowned international brands, or the top leadership of these companies, whose products are sold in European and American markets, do they never come and inspect the working conditions of these factories or monitor compliance with regulations?
YJ: I believe they (the owners) are not fully aware. This is because their local agents are hand-in-glove with the owners of these factories. The agents also manage to get hold of fancy cars, nice homes, land allotments and decent salaries. So they don’t take any issues of (poor working conditions) forward either. These foreign brands seek agents who are local residents and can represent them here. But all these representatives are working together with the factory owners to exploit workers. Sure, it’s possible that the owners are aware of the poor working conditions but say nothing because of their own greed. But my experience tells me that they are not aware.
Mohammad Yaseen Jhulan, the Chief Organizer for the Sindh Sujagi Mazdoor Federation. Image: Author
FH: Earlier, you shared with me that you were fired from your job at a factory and blacklisted. Can you tell us what the reasons were for this? And why can you no longer take up employment in these factories and are restricted to organizing other workers?
YJ: When I first started this struggle, I began organizing workers to build political consciousness– to build their own understanding of workers’ laws and rights. I was fired from each factory I was working in, one after the other. Every factory blacklisted me. And now none of them employ me because they are scared that I might politicise their workers and make them aware of their own legal rights. [Unfortunately,] none of the registered federations or unions here work the way that they should. This is why no factory in the Korangi Industrial employs me. I am blacklisted from all of them.
FH: Thank you for sharing that with us in such detail. Can you also tell us more about when you organized protests? Were you ever arrested? Were you called by or threatened by any secret agencies because of your work?
YJ: We have held many protests. We founded the federation in Feb 2020. Ever since then, we have been receiving complaints and requests from workers and we staged protests at different places. There were two major incidents that happened to me. First, when we announced the date of a peaceful protest against King Apparel in Korangi Industrial Area, they responded by calling 15-20 police vans early in the morning. I was arrested along with two other workers for whom we had in fact called the protest. We were later released on personal bond at 12:30 AM that night.
Second, we protested in front of a denim company to demand the reinstatement of some workers and the implementation of the Sindh government’s recent announcement of a Rs 25,000 minimum wage. At that protest we were laathi-charged (beaten with sticks) by some civilians and policemen called by the factory administration. There were about 50 people at the protest who then dispersed, but 17 of us got arrested. They continued assaulting us, laathi-charging us, at the police station, even in the office of the head clerk. Some media representatives were also with us.
FH: Thank you for sharing that. I wanted to remind our listeners that these workers we are talking about here are those who, just within the time frame of July 2020 to March 2021, have generated the production of 11 billion dollars of textile products for export. And these are the appalling conditions they are working in. Yaseen sahib, can you tell us in your view, which specific Pakistani labour laws have these factories been violating, and how are factory workers typically treated in these factories?
YJ: See in my view, there is really no law which is upheld. The first and foremost right of workers is the right to form unions. But that is not upheld. They (the factory owners) often form pocket-unions, composed of their own people from admin or HR. They stage voting, get votes cast, so that they can claim that they have unions and are following legal processes. In addition, no other laws, e.g. mandated EOBI or social security cards, are followed. Nothing is happening according to the law here in the Industrial Area.
FH: Yaseen sahib, can you tell us in your view, which specific Pakistani labour laws have these factories been violating, and how are factory workers typically treated in these factories?
YJ: There is no (labour) law that is being followed. For example, there is a law protecting the right of workers to unionize. But what they (factory owners) do is that they create “pocket unions”. They add personnel from HR and the management in these dummy unions, and therefore on paper pretend that they already have an established union. Then there are government inspectors who just come, take a round, take their shares and leave. Our basic rights like EOBI cards, social security cards, rent allowances, education allowances and conveyance allowances - none of these are given. In the 15 years that I have worked year, I have never seen the current labor Minister, Saeed Ghani Sahib, or the one before him, come to the Industrial Area. He has never tried to reach out to workers to ask them what problems they face, what their lives look like. So nothing is happening according to the law here.
FH: Ok, so tell us, which forces pose the largest threat to workers like yourself?
YJ: First of all, everyone in Pakistan knows who the most dangerous institutions are. Everyone knows this. But I will still say this - that our biggest enemies are the retired army officers who are running the management of these factories. They are in administration, HR departments and even directors - all retired army officers. Some retired as majors, some captains, some colonels, they are all sitting at these posts. They are our biggest enemies. Earlier you had asked me a question, let me tell you that we get calls from these men, we get threats that they should not find us meeting in Korangi. If we were found organizing workers, there will be consequences. So the biggest threat to us is from them (the army), and they are the ones who harass the workers the most.
Women working at a garment factory in Karachi. Despite producing clothes for the world’s leading brands, workers are denied fair compensation. Image: Author
FH: Ok so do you have any demands for the (international) brands for whom these workers are making these garments?
YJ: Yes, we have appealed many times. But we will appeal again and insist that these brands demand that the Pakistani state implement its own labour laws. And the pants that you buy in dollars, the workers are getting paid a minuscule amount in rupees for it here. So you should do them a favour (sarcastically) and give them fair compensation - in line with the profits you are making from the product.
FH: Thank you so much Yaseen. You have informed us in great detail. And listeners, I hope you would have gotten a sense of the sort of oppressions faced by garment workers. Until next time, Khuda Hafiz
Mohammad Yaseen Jhulan is a garment factory worker in Karachi’s Korangi Industrial area and the Chief Organizer for the Sindh Sujagi Mazdoor Federation.
Fawad Hasan is a journalist based in Karachi, covering human and labour rights violations. He has also remained active with Karachi Bachao Tehreek, a land-rights movement in the city. He tweets @FawadHazan