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Women’s employment in the textile manufacturing sectors of Bangladesh and Morocco made the wearing of aprons obligatory during work. Overall, the findings on wages and attitudes to work indicate that the “status” or “authority” that earning an income could potentially confer on a woman is diminished by the way gender relations are played out in the family and in society. The fact that her wages are low neither enables her to meet her family’s needs nor what she needs for her own well-being. Thus the emancipatory process of the woman worker remains blocked. 8. Unpunctuality and absenteeism As observed in the sections above, the entry of women into industrial wage employment initiates a complex process whereby social norms, values and practices intersect with the demands of the factory. This can also be seen in patterns of unpunctuality and absenteeism, where the different production systems and management practices of the carpets and the knitwear/garment sectors create different sets of conditions for women workers. While some carpet factories have fixed opening and closing hours, in others there are no fixed hours. The latter operate on a piece work basis and the maalma organizes the timetable to achieve her production. This organization of hours of work is in line with the perception that weavers have of work hours and it enables them to deal with their family obligations. If a mother has a sick child she knows that she can stop her work to look after the child, and make up for it later. Similarly, the breaks in the work are not fixed by the carpet factory. The weavers rest when they feel the need. For the weaver, working according to her capacities and needs, while having some flexibility in managing her time, is similar to the way she organizes her time and work in the home. In other words, at this level the organization of the factory coincides with the social norms and responsibilities of the workers. The weaver thus has continuity between her domestic space and her workplace so that she feels at ease, although she pays for this by her low wages. In the garment and knitwear sectors, the hours are from 8 in the morning until 6 in the evening, with one hour, between 1 and 2 p.m., for the women workers to have their lunch. Some factories give the women workers 15-minute breaks for rest in the middle of the morning and in the middle of the afternoon, while others do not. According to the women workers, the breaks are not the same for all jobs. The stitchers who work on the assembly line work regularly for hours on end so they need more frequent pauses because of the intensity of 92
Gender and employment in Moroccan textile industries their work, whereas cutting and packaging do not require such concentration. The breaks can also vary according to sex because of the division of work between women and men. But the breaks, where they exist, are limited in time and never last more than one hour for the mid-day meal and from 10 to 15 minutes in the morning and afternoon. These breaks enable the women workers not only to rest but also to socialize and communicate among themselves. The factories that do not allow the short breaks in the morning and afternoon deprive workers of a moment of much-needed socializing. A feeling of camaraderie is created among the young girls by the work they do together, their common age, the same problems and living conditions. So the break not only lightens the work burden but promotes interaction among the women workers. Most of the women workers say that their working hours are convenient, as they are single and do not have the responsibilities of mothers or married women, for whom it is always a problem to respect working hours. However, while a majority of the women workers declare that the working hours are convenient, this is not always evident in daily practice in terms of punctuality and diligence. Absenteeism among the women workers is a problem that the factory heads attempt to tackle during the pre-recruitment period by the dismissal of some workers to give a lesson to the others. Various reasons can be given for absenteeism. First, there is an absence of a culture of punctuality. The lack of respect for fixed hours is characteristic of the overall society (which, incidentally, has a strong impact on public administration). The only way to get people to submit to fixed hours is by training and by motivating them financially. Low wages justify absenteeism in the eyes of the women workers. Second, socialization within the family does not reinforce the organizational norms and practices of the industrial workplace. For example, the parents of the women workers tend to be first generation rural migrants who have a different relationship with time than do people in an urban industrial culture. Thus the parents of the young women workers do not encourage their daughters to conform to the work patterns of the factory. Absenteeism is always rife when there are religious holidays and family occasions. Sometimes parents come to the factory to ask if their daughter can take leave because the family must all go to the village or visit a relation. (Although such requests are usually granted, if they are repeated they may result in dismissal.) 93
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Women’s Employment in the Textile
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This United Nations Research Instit
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Acknowledgements Many people have b
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notwithstanding the inertia of the
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Carol Miller is a policy analyst on
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xii VII. Contribution of different
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Introduction 1 Introduction 1 Shahr
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Introduction Table 1: Basic indicat
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Introduction women have been tradit
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Introduction The chapters on Bangla
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Introduction occurs, on average, at
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Introduction women workers related
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Introduction in low-income countrie
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Introduction by repaying their “d
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Introduction participate in labour
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Introduction their bargaining power
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Introduction processing zones hypot
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Introduction IV. The case studies T
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Introduction experience in garment
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Introduction V. Conclusion Although
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Introduction improved technology. T
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Introduction References Afsar, R. (
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Introduction Household Power Relati
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Wage discrimination by gender in Mo
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Gender dimensions of labour migrati
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Becoming a garment worker 5Becoming
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Becoming a garment worker garment w
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Becoming a garment worker Table 1:
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Becoming a garment worker view of t
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Becoming a garment worker 2. “I e
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Becoming a garment worker out that
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Becoming a garment worker being. Th
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Becoming a garment worker support t
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Becoming a garment worker they firs
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Becoming a garment worker V. Conclu
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Becoming a garment worker is a job
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Becoming a garment worker Endnotes
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Becoming a garment worker Cole P. D
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Women’s employment in the textile
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260 Annex Table 2:Level of wages an
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