Women's Employment - United Nations Research Institute for Social ...

Women’s employment in the textile manufacturing sectors of Bangladesh and Morocco
carpet sector than in the garment and knitwear sectors.
In the carpet sector, wages depend on performance (measured
in terms of quantity). The maalma is paid by the square metre so her
wages are linked to her capacity to produce and make others produce
the quantity that the firm requires, using her apprentice weavers.
Production is carried out in an artisanal manner. The maalma has every
interest to achieve maximum production, giving as much as she can
of herself and of “her girls” to produce as much as possible and thus
to earn more wages.
In the garment and knitwear sectors, even though wages are
linked to performance, most of the women workers are paid by the
hour and efficiency is measured according to the rhythm of the orders
received and it is thus not fixed very precisely. It depends on the
work season and the orders, as well as on the deadlines, which are
stipulated by the clients before production is started. Even though
most women workers say that the standards are precise, in practice
these are just the instructions that the women workers receive every
day from the head of their workshop.
During the interviews, the workers mentioned variations in the
efficiency criteria. And as these are not fixed this enables the factory
head to pressure workers to produce more whenever the extra
production is needed.
When the bosses want us to produce 30 items an hour, they ask us
to produce 40, and when they see that, after making a big effort, the
workers nevertheless produce 40, they ask for 50. If we produce 50,
they ask for 60. Sometimes they ask us to produce 80 or 90 articles
an hour and force us do it, although it is impossible. For example,
when we are making jackets it is difficult to do more than 30 or 35,
but they insist on us producing 50 without arguing. (Touria,
worker in a garment factory)
While most of the women workers say that it is generally not
difficult to keep up with the pace of the assembly line, at times
maximum productivity is demanded from them when the orders
become urgent and the deadline approaches. Under these
circumstances, the factory heads push women to their limits in order
to maintain the rhythm of production. The women workers realize
this. So they slow down production in order to keep within the scope
of their actual capacity.
As for the carpet sector, maximum productivity is achieved by
mobilizing young girls and girl children under the control and
supervision of the maalma, who is responsible for the quality of the
production. The work of the girl children in the making of carpets is
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