Becoming ‘active labour protestors’: women workers organizing in India’s garment export factories

Abstract

India ranks fifth in the global garment exports. The bedrock of this export industry are poorly paid, migrant women and men. Marked by high rate of exploitation and precarious employment, garment workers are often perceived as a dispossessed lot without any means to resist their exploitation. What possibilities remain within this narrative to make room for everyday politics and resistances? Looking at the individual and collective struggles of garment workers in two southern Indian states, this article highlights the everyday organizing strategies of women resisting their ‘disposibility'. Specifically, the article draws attention to women's life stories to demonstrate what can be learnt from them about the conditions under which to imagine, and come to, build labour unions. The article contributes to the critical feminist scholarship on global factories by explicating the tension between the need to illuminate the extent of exploitation and the urgency of drawing attention to women’s stories.

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