How does the outbreak of Covid-19 affect workers and companies in the Remei textile production chain in India?
The coronavirus is spreading in India. The lockdown with production shutdown currently ordered by the government until 14 April 2020 affects the textile chain of Remei in India. We are monitoring the effects of this extraordinary situation on the workers and companies on the site together with our long-standing production partners in direct and close contact.
In contrast to widespread cancellations of production orders, we have so far succeeded in maintaining production orders for the upcoming delivery months through a cooperative exchange with our trading partners, the retailers and brands. In line with our responsible and fair purchasing practices, we have paid the invoices to the production plants in India for deliveries on time.
In India, there is no economic package or government help for the industry so far, except that the deadline for the payment of taxes and duties for the companies has been extended. There is no state unemployment benefit for the workers. The Indian government is currently working on a directive to regulate the payment of workers during the lockdown. We are monitoring the situation in our supply chain and were able to assure that the workers were paid the outstanding wages.
The lockdown in India led to restrictions on movement and suspension of public transport, which also meant that many workers were unable to return to their homes after the closure of the factories. Our production partners were able to provide various solutions locally in Tirupur.
“We have a small percentage of migrant workers When lockdown was suddenly declared, they didn’t have enough time to return to their villages. We placed them on our factory grounds. They receive three meals a day and are looked after. We have a paramedic who comes twice a week to check their state of health”, says Premal Udani, owner, Kaytee Corporation Pvt. Ltd, Tirupur India.
Due to the lockdown, many migrant workers could not leave Tirupur. We therefore placed our workers safely in a dormitory and we asked our workers to stay on site. We provide all workers with 3 meals a day”, says Lilam Reuben, owner Century Apparels Pvt.Ltd, Tirupur, India.
The danger of infection in the production facilities is responsibly perceived by our production partners. Even before the lockdown, the garment manufacturing facility began to provide information and sensitization measures to inform workers about the dangers of the virus and the importance of hygiene measures.
How can Remei deal with the risk that production losses that have occurred now could be compensated for in the future by excessive overtime on the part of the workers?
Remei intends to refrain from basic relocations of production volumes in order to support the restart of production in India. bioRe® organic cotton raw material and yarns are kept in stock and financed by Remei, so they are available to restart production.
The capacity of the sewing lines will probably be reduced after the lockdown. As exclusive licensee of the bioRe® brand Remei guarantees that its productions comply with the comprehensive social and ecological requirements of the bioRe® quality labels. All sewing factories, in our production chain are SA 8000 certified and the sub-suppliers at least BSCI audited. These management systems including the certification and audit processes but above all the responsible corporate governance of our partners will lead to the prevention of excessive overtime.
For the planning of production Remei will contribute to finding appropriate solutions together with our trading and production partners in order to further secure and develop our strong production chains in India in a sustainable way.
