The sewing machine features prominently in many immigrant homes across Australia; It is a major source of income for some households. Often every member of the family will help out in making large batches of clothes, which will end up sold in stores across Australia.
First generation immigrant women make up the majority of outworkers who sew garments from home, often for as little as $2 to $3 an hour. Their numbers are estimated to range from 50,000 to 300,000 nationally. In Australia, outworkers sew up to 90 percent of Australian Made clothes for major retailers, designers and for the firms that supply work wear and school uniforms. To fill their work orders, they often work up to 18 hours a day and 7 days a week. They have effectively replaced workers based in factories as clothing companies have found them a cheaper option.
Due to their isolated working conditions and sometimes poor command of English outworkers are vulnerable to exploitation and are in need of protection. They need legislation that protects their right to be recognized as employees and to receive wages and conditions equivalent to their factory counterparts. This legal recognition is vital in holding companies accountable for their practices. The clothing industry in Australia has historically insisted on treating outworkers as contractors, often entering into sham contractual arrangements where outworkers receive well below the legal minimum wage.
FairWear, a community coalition campaign made up of churches, unions, community groups and outworkers has worked for the past decade to expose and prevent the exploitation of outworkers. Working in coalition with many groups including Oxfam, Brotherhood of Saint Laurence and the Textile Clothing and Footwear Union, FairWear lobbies for fairer wages and conditions for outworkers.
Recent campaigning on outwork issues has focused almost exclusively on efforts to preserve State and Federal protection for outworkers under the Governments’ changes to workplace laws. These protections include the right of an outworker to a minimum wage equivalent to their skill level, the ability to claim unpaid wages from employers and the capacity for the Clothing Textile and Footwear Union of Australia to prosecute companies who fail to provide outworkers with legal minimum working conditions.
In her testimony to the Senate Inquiry into Work Choices (November, 2005), Helena Chong voiced the fears of outworkers : ‘We are scared of how bosses will exploit us further when we become independent contractors and their current treatment of