The historic city of Dindigul in Tamil Nadu has witnessed a remarkable transformation in the working conditions of garment factory employees over the past five years. This turnaround was spearheaded by a female-led, majority-Dalit labour union, the Tamil Nadu Textile and Common Labour Union (TTCU), in the wake of a brutal murder that shook the community.
On 5 January 2021, the decomposing body of Jeyasre Kathiravel, a 21-year-old Dalit woman and employee of the Natchi Apparel factory, was found on a strip of farmland near her village. Her supervisor, V Thangadurai, confessed to raping and murdering Kathiravel, whom her co-workers described as a victim of his persistent sexual harassment and intimidation.
The “Justice for Jeyasre” campaign, led by TTCU and supported by international worker’s rights organisations like the Asia Floor Wage Alliance (Afwa) and Global Labor Justice (GLJ), resulted in the signing of the Dindigul Agreement to End Gender-Based Violence and Harassment. This landmark contract, inspired by a similar accord in Lesotho, was firmly grounded in the shop floor through the involvement of the local union.
H&M Group, which had previously sourced from Natchi, signed a supporting agreement with TTCU, Afwa and GLJ, providing $300,000 in funding for the implementation of the agreement. Other brands, including Gap Inc and PVH Corp, followed suit despite not having previously sourced from Natchi.
The agreement has enabled the retention of unionists on the factory floor, the training of shop-floor monitors to report and resolve instances of sexual harassment, and the creation of an independent grievance mechanism. Jeyalakshmi, a cutter who has worked at Natchi for seven years, says, “We are no longer harassed, and there isn’t the same feeling of hostility as before. We have real freedom.”
Alagesan Senniappan, a senior vice-president at Eastman, the parent company of Natchi, acknowledges the agreement has been a “win-win situation,” with renewed trust between workers and management, as well as increased productivity.
However, the factory’s order book has never fully recovered since H&M Group’s departure. Saravanan Kurivilla, a professor at Cornell University’s ILR School, believes the global economic slowdown and the “chilling effect” of a 2022 US customs order suspecting forced labour have contributed to this challenge.
Despite the Dindigul Agreement’s success, Nandita Shivakumar of Afwa believes the industry still lacks the will to prioritise worker welfare. “Unless there is some massive tragedy, nobody will do anything,” she laments. The journey towards justice for Jeyasre and the transformation of the Natchi factory serves as a powerful reminder of the potential for worker-led reform, even in the face of formidable obstacles.