Conclusion And Way Forward The increasing integration of developing countries in Asia into global apparel supply chains has been accompanied by the dominant policy and academic perspective that production countries, supplier factories and workers will benefit from trickle-down growth, and the economic and social upgrading that results from their association with major global apparel brands. The most popular indicator used for measuring the positive developmental impact of global apparel supply chains is the movement of garment workers above the World Bank International Poverty Line. Yet this poverty line has been widely critiqued as a low standard that does not take into account the full range of consumption requirements of workers and their households.1 The pandemic-induced recession and resultant humanitarian crisis facing garment workers has revealed strong evidence that the existing structure of global supply chains is not oriented towards facilitating the development of production countries or alleviating the poverty of garment workers, with the costs of participation in global apparel supply chains outweighing its benefits.
Poverty-level Wages Cause Human Rights Violations Three interrelated conclusions can be inferred from the findings of the report. One, the stagnation of workers’ wages at poverty levels results in the lack of any form of resilience to crisis, causing workers to fall below the poverty line and slip into extreme poverty immediately. Two, wage theft of workers with poverty-level wages
constitutes a human rights violation as workers and their households are forced to reduce consumption below minimum survival levels and incur increased debt, thereby getting trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty and indebtedness. Three, brands caused and contributed to human rights violations of workers in their supply chains through their actions before and during the pandemic-induced recession. The management practices and harmful actions of brands, which are deeply entrenched and legitimised within their supply chains, translated into harmful employment practices in their supplier factories, which in turn led to different forms of wage theft experienced by workers. Poverty-level wages do not allow workers the flexibility to withstand even short periods of loss of employment and wages without triggering a humanitarian crisis, leading to the reversal of any development gains for workers or production countries. The economy and workforce in the majority of Asian production countries are highly dependent on garment exports, making them even more vulnerable to crisis. Despite being employed in the most globalised, industrial sector of their economies, garment workers’ wages remain at poverty levels over their lifetime, without any scope for upward mobility, improved standards of living, and creation of savings and assets. Garment workers faced different forms of forced labour even prior to the pandemic, as they were pushed to take on oppressive debt or work brutal overtime hours to cover their families’ consumption needs. Under these already harsh conditions, garment workers were compelled to further 177
