Apparel Online India Issue 1-15 March '18 | Page 20

WOMEN WARRIORS THE LATEST NEWS HAVE YOUR SAY For the latest news on apparel and textile, make sure that you visit https://apparelresources.com/top-news/ Write to Apparel Resources, B-32, South Extension-1, New Delhi (110049), India or email: [email protected] AO Analyses Women ‘power’ on the shopfloor… not really! South India better placed on women workforce There are women operators on all 50 stitching machines in one of the sewing floors of Ludhiana-based Superfine Knitters Ltd., and this floor is producing 2,700 pieces of tees per day. With an average of 54 tees per women per day, this factory has overall 40 per cent women and its young Director Vivek Lakra is geared up to increase this percentage to 80 per cent in next one or two years. But, this is not the norm as there are hundreds of factories which are having less than 10 per cent women workers. Even factories in the South, which claim to have a majority of women workers are still predominantly men-dominated, though the situation there is far better. T hough there is no official study or survey on how many women are actually working on the shopfloor and average man-woman ratio in factories, data collected from various sources indicate that the tilt is very much in favour of men workers, as of today. Even Apparel Online Top 100 exporters’ survey, which includes data of man-woman ratio in various companies, observed that in 2015 the man-woman ratio on an all-India basis was 60:40. In a recent transparency initiative, Primark, the UK-based clothing and accessories company, published for the first-time details of its suppliers’ factories with an overview of the number of employees in each factory and the male-female split. Surprisingly, out of 173 Indian factories working with Primark, the 21 factories in Delhi-NCR are having l0 per cent or even less women working on the shopfloor. There are however 7 factories of Delhi-NCR in this vendor list having 11 to 20 per cent of women workers. In Panipat, there are two suppliers of Primark and one of them has just 1 per cent women in one of its factories. The distribution of women in factories of Delhi-NCR is very uneven, and even bigger companies are still banking on Women working in Superfine Knitters Ltd., Ludhiana 20 Apparel Online India | MARCH 1-15, 2018 | www.apparelresources.com men operators. At Celestial Knits & Fabs, of the total 1000 workers, just 50 (5 per cent) are women. Similarly, CTA Apparels, which has nearly 2,500 workers, has just 110 women on its payroll (4.4 per cent). There are many more such companies who have shared their men women ratio and some of them are having less than 20 per cent women workers. Even a company like, Radnik Exports, which is known for its best practices and HR policies too has around 21 per cent women in its factories. But then there are few companies that are breaking the glass top. One of the factories of Pinnacle Clothing Company in Noida, which has more than 500 workers, has 32 per cent women workers which is quite high, compared to many other garment factories of Noida. Paragon Apparel is another company having a good percentage of women workers (35 per cent). There are some companies where women are at the helm but when it comes to women workers on the shopfloor, there is no reflection of the same. For example, Moissanite Apparels, Noida founded by Anshu Saxena with her husband Vivek Saxena has just 10 per cent women in its workforce of 1000 workers. Orient Fashion Exports India, Gurgaon