The ready-made garment (RMG) workers in Bangladesh and Vietnam, producing clothes for the $23-billion Australian fashion industry, do not earn enough money to fulfil their basic needs, according to a latest report.
The research also exposed the fact that the widespread payment of meagre wages in the RMG sector is trapping the workers and their families in an evil cycle of poverty.
"Nine out of ten workers interviewed in Bangladesh and seven in Vietnam cannot afford enough food for themselves and their families, which forces them to skip meals regularly and eat inadequately, or go into debt."
Oxfam Australia launched the report, titled 'Made in Poverty - the true price of fashion', on Monday.
About 72 per cent of workers in Bangladesh factories and 53 per cent in Vietnam said they cannot afford medical treatment when they got sick or injured, it said.
More than three quarters of the Bangladesh-based workers had no running water inside their house, while more than 40 per cent of workers in Vietnam reported worrying about having to use a well or rainwater.
About 99 per cent of Bangladeshi RMG workers regularly work overtime, while 84 per cent reported that they feel that they cannot say 'no' to overtime or night duty.
Some 89 per cent of the surveyed Bangladeshi garment workers reported that their wages are not enough to cover education cost of their children.
About 33 per cent do not live with their children, with 78 per cent reported it as the result of lack of sufficient income.
None of the surveyed Bangladeshi workers and 42 per cent of the Vietnamese workers wants their children to work in the garment industry, the report revealed.
Workers in both the countries reported facing significant levels of verbal abuse, while those in Bangladesh also reported high levels of physical and sexual abuse.
Some 56 per cent of Bangladeshi workers reported that they experience wage cuts regularly, while 43 per cent reported inaccurate calculation of working hours, the report showed.
The study is the first in-depth investigation into the supply chains of big Australian brands. It exposes the hardships of everyday life of the workers, mainly women, who are an essential part of a lucrative industry, and yet who struggle everyday to procure enough food.
Oxfam interviewed 470 garment workers at factories that are supplying to brands, such as - Big W, Kmart, Target and Cotton On. It found that 100 per cent of the surveyed workers in Bangladesh and 74 per cent in Vietnam cannot make their ends meet.
The report also examined the pressures placed on factory operators and owners by the Australia-based brands to keep prices of their products low, which, in turn, keeps wages at levels that denies scopes of decent lives to workers and their families.
Aggressive price negotiation by brands has an impact on manufacturers' ability to pay decent wages to their workers. Intense competition for business pushes the owners and managers of garment factories in the developing countries to engage in a "race to the bottom" on prices, it noted.
Besides price negotiation, there are different tactics that buyers apply to reduce the prices they have to pay or to impose fines. Reducing delivery time at one end and imposing fines at the other end for not meeting the delivery time are the most common among these.
Surfing for the lowest price also leads to unstable relationships between the buyers (brands) and their suppliers (the factories).
Another key factor that causes payment of low wages is the mismatch between brands' commitments and their allocated staff and focus when they deal with garment factories.
Australian brands are an integral part of the system that keeps these women (RMG workers) trapped in poverty, it revealed.
The brands have the power, and must take steps that will enable these workers to lift themselves out of poverty. This can be done through ensuring the payment of living wages that allow workers to buy enough nutritious food, live in decent housing, send their children to school, and get healthcare facility.
The first step for the Australian brands is to commit to a clear strategy and timeline that will help ensure the payment of living wages to the workers making their clothes, the recommendations included.
When asked, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) President Md Siddiqur Rahman disagreed with the findings of the research, saying not a single person in Bangladesh went without food.
"Local researches showed that majority of the workers have savings, and the findings are not true," he noted.
Expressing doubt over the findings, he said some 470 workers do not represent the whole RMG industry that employs more than four million workers.
He alleged that as garment is an international trade, such surveys are conducted to undermine the local industry and damage its business.
