News from Tamil Nadu: Video and Website

How does the work of Partnership Initiatives actually look like? Who do we work with on the ground? In 3:30 minutes our new video provides insights and impressions of the work in Tamil Nadu.

The Partnership Initiative aims at systemically improving the working conditions in the textile and garment industry in Tamil Nadu, South India, and focuses on making the situation of women and girls in spinning mills more socially acceptable.

There is usually little transparency and there are often major challenges with regard to social standards and working conditions: exploitation through lump-sum contracts, wages below the official minimum wage rates, excessive overtime, repression of trade unions, lack of freedom of association and gender-based violence pose a threat to local employees.

Therefore, a training programme will support the planned establishment of complaints committees in 300 factories and inform workers and management about labour rights and complaint/grievance mechanisms.

In the video, Visalini S., one of over 150 trainers, talks about her work: “My job is to go and speak with the mill labourers and let them know about their rights and responsibilities and what are the incentives they have to get to be in a proper framework of organized labour.”

In addition, representatives of our implementing partner, the Multi-Stakeholder Initiative Tamil Nadu (MSI-TN), talk about their goals and activities. 

In an open dialogue, local businesses, non-governmental organisations and other stakeholders discuss how they can jointly initiate positive changes. In addition to the recently kicked-off dialogue fora at district and state level (see this article from late March), the first annual conference in March also served to promote the dialogue activities. A delegation of the Textiles Partnership also participated in the annual conference.