Class, gender and the sweatshop: on the nexus between labour commodification and exploitation

Abstract

Drawing on approaches to class emphasising the multiplicity of labour relations at work under capitalism, and from feminist insights on oppression and social reproduction, this paper illustrates the interconnection between processes of class formation and patriarchal norms in globalised production circuits. The analysis emphasises the nexus between the commodification and exploitation of women’s labour, and how it structures gendered wage differentials, labour control and the high ‘disposability’ of women’s work. The analysis develops these arguments by exploring the case of the Indian garment industry and its gendered sweatshop regime. It illustrates how commodification and exploitation interplay in factory and home-based realms, and discusses how an approach on class premised on social reproduction changes the social perimeters of what we understand as labour ‘unfreedom’ and labour struggles.

Keywords:

• Sweatshop
• class
• patriarchal norms
• commodification
• exploitation
• India

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the editors of this special issue for their support, and the two anonymous reviewers chosen by Third World Quarterly for their helpful and challenging comments. The usual disclaimers apply. Thanks also to Praveen Jha for asking me to present an earlier draft of this paper in Delhi in the summer of 2014. That presentation was attended by Sam Moyo, to whom this article is dedicated.

Notes

1. Bair, “On Difference and Capital.”

2. Boserup, Women’s Role in Economic Development.

3. Standing, “Global Feminization.”

4. Elson and Pearson, “The Subordination of Women.”

5. Bair, “On Difference and Capital.”

6. Stewart, Horizontal Inequalities; and Tilly, Durable Inequality. For Therborn, The Killing Fields of Inequality, gender is a source of ‘existential’ inequality.

7. Elson, “Labour Markets as Gendered Institutions.”

8. Sassen, “Counter-geographies of Globalisation.”

9. Elson and Pearson, “The Subordination of Women.”

10. Salzinger, Genders in Production; Pun, Made in China; and Caraway, “The Political Economy of Feminization.”

11. Wright, Disposable Women.

12. See also Elson, “Nimble Fingers and Other Fables.”

13. Bair, “On Difference and Capital.”

14. A review of the approaches goes beyond the scope of this article. Compare Bair, “Global Capitalism and Commodity Chains”; Bair, Frontiers of Commodity Chain Research; Coe et al., “Global Production Networks”; and Barrientos et al., “Economic and Social Upgrading.” Here, chains and networks are conceived as ‘objects of enquiry’ for the study of interplays between patriarchal norms and capital–labour relations.

15. Joekes, “Bringing Gender Analysis into the Value Chain”; Barrientos, “Gender, Flexibility and Global Value Chains”; and Barrientos et al., “A Gendered Value Chain Approach.”

16. For example, Kelly, “From Global Production Networks.”

17. For example, Selwyn, “Gender, Wage Work and Development.”

18. Federici, Revolution at Point Zero.

19. Dunaway, Gendered Commodity Chains.

20. Mezzadri, “Indian Garment Clusters”; and Mezzadri, ‘Backshoring, Sweatshop Regimes and CSR.”

21. Hartmann, “The Unhappy Marriage”; See also Vogel, Marxism and the Oppression of Women.

22. Folbre, “Hearts and Spades.” Neoclassical approaches to the household are greatly influenced by the work of Gary Becker, widely criticised by feminist economists. See, for example, Kabeer, Reversed Realities.

23. Weeks, “Life within and against Work”; and Weeks, The Problem with Work.

24. Denning, “Wageless Life”; and Federici, Revolution at Point Zero.

25. Mitchell et al., “Life’s Work”; and Standing, “Understanding the Precariat.”

26. Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation; Federici, Caliban and the Witch.

27. Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins”; and Goettfried, “Reflections on Intersectionality.”

28. For example, Wallis, “Intersectionality’s Binding Agent.”

29. Fernandez, Producing Workers, 160.

30. Banaji, “The Fictions of Free Labour”; Banaji, Theory as History; and Bernstein, “Capital and Labour.”

31. Lerche, “From ‘Rural Labour’ to ‘Classes of Labour’.”

32. Mitchell et al., “Life’s Work.”

33. Breman, Footloose Labour; and Breman, At Work in the Informal Economy.

34. Banaji, Theory as History.

35. Federici, Caliban and the Witch; Mies, The Lacemakers of Narsapur; and Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation.

36. Harriss-White and Gooptu, “Mapping India’s World of Unorganized Labour.”

37. Federici, Caliban and the Witch, 64. For Federici the attack against ‘witchcraft’ was to women what enclosures were to poor peasants and the landless. In this reading primitive accumulation always includes multiple processes of dispossession.

38. Mies, The Lacemakers of Narsapur; and Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation. These insights are in line with Harvey’s later theorisation of ‘accumulation by dispossession’, although not framed around the ‘woman’s question’. See Harvey, “The ‘New’ Imperialism.”

39. See also Silver, Forces of Labour.

40. Harriss-White and Gooptu, “Mapping India’s World of Unorganized Labour.”

41. Kapadia, “Gender Ideologies.”

42. Kabeer, The Power to Choose; Kabeer and Mahmud, “Rags, Riches, and Women Workers”; Ruwanpura, “Women Workers in the Apparel Sector”; and Chan et al., “The Politics of Global Production.”

43. Dunaway, “Through the Portal of the Household”; and Ramamurthy, “Feminist Commodity Chain Analysis.”

44. For example, Kelly, “From Global Production Networks.”

45. Federici, Caliban and the Witch.

46. Banaji, Theory as History.

47. See Chhachhi, “Introduction.”

48. Cf. Burawoy, “From Polanyi to Pollyanna”; and Webster, “From Critical Sociology to Combat Sport.” See also Selwyn and Miyamura, “Class Struggle or Embedded Markets?”

49. See Deshingkar, Extending Labour Inspections; Mosse, “A Relational Approach”; and Phillips, “Informality, Global Production Networks.”

50. Mezzadri, “Backshoring, Local Sweatshop Regimes and CSR.”

51. Chari, Fraternal Capital; and Carswell and De Neve, “Labouring for Global Markets.”

52. Mezzadri, “Backshoring, Local Sweatshop Regimes and CSR”; On clusters’ specialization, see also AEPC, Indian Apparel Clusters.

53. Ibid.

54. Mezzadri, Garment Sweatshop Regimes.

55. Singh and Kaur Sapra, “Liberalisation in Trade and Finance”; Mezzadri, “The Rise of Neoliberal Globalisation”; Mezzadri, “Reflections on Globalisation”; and Barrientos et al., “Decent Work in Global Production Networks.”

56. Mezzadri and Srivastava, Labour Regimes.

57. Mezzadri, “Indian Garment Clusters and CSRNorms.”

58. Kalpagam, “Labour in Small Industry”; Sharma, “Globalisation with a Female Face”; RoyChowdhury, “Labour Activism and Women”; Roychowdhury, “Bringing Class Back In”; and Mezzadri, “Reflections on Globalisation.”

59. Lyimo, Sexual Harassment; Jenkins, “Organizing ‘Spaces of Hope’”; Kumar, “Interwoven Threads”; RoyChowdhury, “Labour Activism and Women”; and Roychowdhury, “Bringing Class Back In.”

60. Chari, Fraternal Capital; Chari, “Fraternal Capital and the Feminisation of Labour”; De Neve, “Power, Inequality and Corporate Social Responsibility”; and Carswell and De Neve, “Labouring for Global Markets.”

61. Mezzadri, “Reflections on Globalisation.”

62. Kabeer, The Power to Choose; Kabeer and Mahmud, “Rags, Riches and Women Workers”; Ruwanpura, “Scripted Performances?”; Salzinger, Genders in Production; Pearson and Kusakabe, Thailand’s Hidden Workforce; Arnold and Pickles, “Global Work, Surplus Labour”; and Pun et al., Final Report on Garment Sector.

63. Banerjee, “How Real is the Bogey of Feminisation?”; and Ghosh, Never Done and Poorly Paid.

64. Abraham, “Missing Labour or Consistent ‘De-feminisation’?”

65. Breman, Footloose Labour.

66. Mezzadri and Srivastava, Labour Regimes.

67. Mazumdar and Neetha, “Gender Dimensions”; and John, “The Problem of Women’s Labour.”

68. Raju, “The Material and the Symbolic.”

69. Lal, Diagnostic Study.

70. Srivastava, “Capital–Labour Relationships.”

71. Ibid.

72. Mezzadri, Garment Sweatshop Regimes.

73. Federici, Revolution at Point Zero.

74. Selwyn, “Elite Development Theory.”

75. Mezzadri, Garment Sweatshop Regimes.

76. Srivastava, “Capital–Labour Relationships.”

77. Arizpe and Aranda, “The ‘Comparative Advantages’ of Women’s Disadvantages.”

78. Seguino, “Accounting for Gender.”

79. Connell, Gender and Power.

80. Kabeer, The Power to Choose.

81. Salzinger, Genders in Production; Pun, Made in China; and Caraway, “The Political Economy of Feminization.”

82. Elson, “Nimble Fingers and Other Fables.”

83. Wright, Disposable Women, 4. See also Chang, Disposable Domestics; and Bales, Disposable People.

84. Kandiyoti, “Bargaining with Patriarchy.”

85. Mezzadri, “Globalisation, Informalisation and the State.”

86. Mezzadri, “Reflections on Globalisation.”

87. Jenkins, “Organizing ‘Spaces of Hope’”; and Kumar, “Interwoven Threads.”

88. Sen, “Beyond the ‘Working Class’.”

89. Jenkins, “Organizing ‘Spaces of Hope’.”

90. Lyimo, Sexual Harassment.

91. Mezzadri, “Reflections on Globalisation.”

92. Cividep and SOMO, Richer Bosses, Poorer Workers.

93. Pun, “The Dormitory Labour Regime”; and Cerimele, “Informalising the Formal.”

94. Mezzadri, “Reflections on Globalisation.”

95. Breman, Footloose Labour; and Breman, “Neobondage.” Neobondage includes labour arrangements involving high degrees of unfreedom, often linked to labour circulation. It differs from old forms of bondage involving inter-generational family debt. See also Lerche, “A Global Alliance against Forced Labour?”; and Srivastava, “Conceptualising Continuity and Change.”

96. SOMO and ICN, The Abuse of Girls; FLA and Solidaridad, Understanding the Characteristics of the Sumangali Scheme. It must be noted that minimum monthly wages may be paid during the work period.

97. See Mezzadri, “Labour Regimes in the Garment Sector”; and CDPR, The Oppressive Labour Conditions. The survey found that while (almost exclusively male) own-account workers and workers in micro-units can earn on average 6700 rupees under conditions of continuous employment (admittedly rare), women homeworkers earn on average less than 2000 rupees.

98. Mezzadri, “The Rise of Neoliberal Globalisation”; Mezzadri, “Indian Garment Clusters and CSR Norms”; and Unni and Scaria, “Governance Structure and Labour Market Outcomes.”

99. See Raju, Gendered Geographies. See also Raju, “The Material and the Symbolic.”

100. Mezzadri, “Indian Garment Clusters and CSR Norms.”

101. Mezzadri and Srivastava, Labour Regimes.

102. See Raju, “The Material and the Symbolic.”

103. Mezzadri and Srivastava, Labour Regimes.

104. Mezzadri, “Free to Stitch or Starve.”

105. Banaji, “The Fictions of Free Labour.”

106. Mezzadri, “Free to Stitch or Starve.”

107. Chhachhi, “Introduction.”

108. Breman, At Work in the Informal Economy.