Game changer for garment workers

Over 30 companies sign accord to protect Bangladeshi clothing workers.

International trade union organisations and anti-poverty campaigners are celebrating the signing by 31 major clothes stores of a five-year, legally binding agreement which guarantees independent fire inspections, worker-led health and safety committees and union access to factories in Bangladesh.

It also grants workers the right to refuse dangerous work, in line with ILO Convention 155.

This 'Accord on Fire and Building Safety' covers more than 1000 Bangladeshi garment factories.

The signatories, including Marks and Spencer, Tesco and H&M, have agreed to fund improvements in dangerous factories and deal with fire safety and structural problems.

This agreement comes after the Rana Plaza factory complex in Bangladesh collapsed on 24 April killing 1,127 workers.

According to the ‘If you tolerate this then your daughters will be next’ blog, the Bangladeshi garment industry accounts for over 80 per cent of the country’s exports.

Its workers are among the lowest paid in the world, earning on average USD38 a months, according to IndustriALL.

For campaigners this agreement is a game changer.

International trade union organisations IndustriALL and UNI Global Union and pressure groups like the Clean Clothes Campaign and the Worker Rights Consortium have been pushing major clothing retailers to improve pay and working conditions for garment workers in Bangladesh for some time.

But Bangladesh is not the only country where garment workers face low pay and poor working conditions.

This week the Guardian reported that a shoe factory had collapsed in Cambodia killing several workers.

Clearly agreements like the one in Bangladesh need to be signed throughout the developing world, and we need to put pressure on companies with the worst pay and safety record by refusing to buy their goods.

This is more difficult than it seems, as there are many factors to take into consideration.

Netherlands-based campaign group Rank a Brand has come up with a list of criteria which they use to score brands on their labour conditions.

These include whether companies have a code of conduct, outlining hygienic conditions and standards against forced child labour and discrimination; whether their workers can join trade unions; their factories are audited and audit information is responded to, and whether they aim to improve labour conditions as a wider organisation.

@sssukiii has invented an infographic to help consumers identify which brands have the best policies.

Interestingly the cheaper, high street brands like H&M, Zara, Gap and Monsoon tend to perform better than high-end designer labels like Paul Smith, Versace or Vivienne Westwood, who make statements about environmental sustainability or workers rights and even support campaigns, but appear to have no formal, published policies in place.

To see if your favourite brand has set up solid initiatives so as to reduce their impact on the climate, makes serious efforts to improve their environmental performance or has the best and clearest policies for improving labour conditions in their factories, click here.

Story published on the Women's Views on News website, May 21, 2013

A closer look at unpaid carers

Census figures show bulk of caring responsibility falls on women, especially those aged 50-64.

Figures released from the 2011 Census last week reveal that the majority of unpaid carers in England and Wales, 58 per cent, are women.

And 11.8 per cent of all women are carers, compared with 8.9 per cent of men.

Caring responsibilities increase with age - and so does the gender imbalance.

Nearly a quarter of women aged 50 to 64 are carers, compared with 17 per cent of men in the same age group.

Working women are more likely to be carers than those who do not work;  12.1 per cent of full time female workers and 16.1 per cent of part-timers in England were carers.

And this extra work takes its toll on their health.

Women in full-time work providing more than 50 hours unpaid care were almost three times more likely to report poor health than full-time female workers who are not carers.

Male carers in full-time work were only two and a half times more likely to report poor health.

According to Carers UK, the number of middle-aged female carers in the UK as a whole has risen by 13 per cent in the last 10 years and now totals 1.2 million.

This is a sharper increase than the total number of carers which has increased by 11 per cent to 6.5 million.

Carers UK estimates that the total cost to the economy of carers giving up work is £5.3 billion a year.

The charity also points to the increasing challenge for employers, as Census figures also show that 1 in 8 workers are juggling work with caring for older or disabled loved ones.

Heléna Herklots, chief executive of Carers UK, said: “Becoming a carer can turn your world upside-down and when that responsibility falls in middle age it can change your working and personal life irreversibly.

“Women who have struggled to juggle childcare and work are now also finding themselves caring for ageing parents - and sometimes also a seriously ill partner.

“Without the right support, women are forced to leave work, or reduce their hours at an age where it is a real challenge to re-enter the work force when caring comes to an end.

“This brings serious consequences for their incomes and pensions, as well as a wider cost to the UK economy."

Article published on the Women's Views on News website, May 23, 2013

Uncovering her story

Tracing our female ancestors can be tricky, but it is vital if we really want to know who we are.

It is often difficult finding any reference to women in history, let alone understanding what they did and how they contributed to society.

Until quite recently women routinely changed their names after marrying, they were not allowed to vote and own property, men paid the bills and wrote the wills, so finding them is not so easy.

Sharon DeBartolo Carmack, author of Finding Female Ancestors, believes following the female line can open up new possibilities.

Women are important to trace because they are the ones who give us new family lines to pursue, and researching your female line can help explode myths and challenge stereotypes.

Carmack believes getting to know your female ancestors can help develop a more rounded picture of life in the past.

“While we may find many records for men detailing their military service, land purchases and civic lives, women were more likely to be the letter writers, the family Bible recorders, and the diarists.

“They recorded family and daily life,” she said.

A good example of this, for Carmack, came from one of her clients.

“She's fortunate to have her mother's high school diaries from the 1930s.

“Here you have the mom's own writing, her own voice, her own thoughts, her own opinions, as well as the names of all the boys she dated and had crushes on.

“No other record will give you that kind of information,” said Carmack.

But for genealogist Emma Jolly, author of titles like Family History for Kids and an upcoming book about women in war, tracing her female line helps her understand her own experiences.

“I’m a mother, so I’m interested in the pregnancy, child rearing and childbirth experiences of my ancestors.

"It’s something you can learn from, as pregnancy is something that women experience whatever era you’re in.

“I grew up with my grandmother, she used to live with us and my grandmother, my mother's and my pregnancy experiences have been the same. We all had the same morning sickness and childbirth experiences,” she said.

“When you trace your female line you realise how many women worked outside the home," she said.

“If you have a more middle class line you may find women who engaged in political campaigning. Many working class women were working all the time, right through pregnancy in some cases.

“My great, great grandmother worked as a domestic servant in a London townhouse while pregnant, so she would have had to go up several flights of stairs," said Jolly. "It must have been very hard.”

You often have to dig deep to find out what your female ancestors were doing, Jolly said.

"Newspapers are really useful for finding female ancestors. There are the digital archives of the Times, 

Guardian, Observer and Daily Mirror.

“Women were often involved in church and community activities, so you may have to look at more specific archives, so for example if your ancestor was a member of the Methodist church it might be with the National Methodist Archives.

“There may be a really detailed obituary or an example of your ancestor running a church fete.

“You can also check marriage certificates and birth certificates for maiden names,” she said.

Vital - and fun.

Story published on Women's Views on News, May 8, 2013

A UK Lifeboat for Eastern Europeans

WVoN spoke to four women who help East European women who are in the UK and need support.

Most women who settle in the UK from Eastern Europe find work and are happy here. But some need support.

Barka UK is an organisation that helps vulnerable Eastern Europeans in Britain.

Barka is Polish for barge and the organisation provides a lifeboat for people who are homeless or out of work in London.

It also runs a national telephone helpline where women can get immediate support and advice.

Dorota Harembska, who runs the outreach and resettlement service, says that 90 per cent of the homeless people they come across are men, and they often suffer from severe drug and alcohol addiction.

Most of the people who call Barka UK's helpline however, are women.

Agnieszka Baczkiewicz runs the helpline, and receives calls from Eastern European women, not just in London but from across the country.

“I can have a call about something simple like free school meals, but there are quite a few calls about legal issues such as housing benefit, finding a private landlord that will be willing to accept them, or finding a council willing to house them.

“We are not always able to find services that can reconnect people to their home country.

“Someone living in the middle of nowhere can find themselves homeless with no language services.

“A lot of the phone calls come from women, because women are quite pro-active in looking after their families.

"They are worried about things going wrong,” she said.

Malgorzata Bachmiak runs the Social Economy Centre, which provides support with vocational training and job seeking.

“We know quite a few people who were paid under the minimum wage.

"They were paid £6 an hour which is illegal and were not being paid National Insurance,” she said.

Although most of her clients are men working in industries like construction and catering, Bachmiak says that most Eastern European women work, and they tend to return to work very quickly after having children.

“I had this woman she had never worked before, she lived here for two years she had three kids and then she got pregnant again.

“She went to the Jobcentre and applied for JSA, but she wanted to get some work and get some rights.

“She had to return to work after two weeks [after giving birth].

"It was very difficult, as she had a caesarean. She gave her baby to her mother to look after.

“It's quite difficult, especially for single mothers, the father runs away, what should they do, should they go back to Poland?

"They are in a different country. Maybe the kids are not three years old yet, so they can't go to pre-school, but there is nothing for them in Poland,” said Baczkiewicz.

She said her helpline receives some calls about domestic violence, but not as many as she would expect.

“Perhaps women are afraid, they just put up with it. Perhaps its not so much of an issue, but I don't think so because of all the alcoholism. Maybe they find other services,” said Baczkiewicz.

The women thought Barka UK offered a unique and valuable service to their community.

“We are different from other services first of all because of the language. We are able to communicate with people from Eastern Europe, some of the staff speak Russian as well.

“We are closer to them culturally. We know their situation better,” said Monika Zerbin, who worked as an outreach worker for the charity.

However Barka UK has recently faced worrying funding cuts.

Lambeth Council and the City of London decided not to continue commissioning it to provide reconnection services for Central and Eastern European migrants living in these boroughs, although they will still be able to access Barka's helpline and Social Economy Centre, which are funded from other sources.

Lord Roberts of Llandudno, President of the Friends of Barka UK, wrote last month: “Such decisions make little sense since migrants from countries such as Poland account for nearly a third of London’s homeless population, a figure which may rise when barriers to Romanian and Bulgarian workers are lifted next year.

"Barka UK must be allowed to continue making a difference.

"London councils need to realise that organisations that know what they are doing in this difficult area should be supported in these tough times.

"Now, more than ever, we need to reach out and help migrant rough-sleepers on the streets of our capital.

"And we must ensure that inspirational groups such as Barka UK can continue to do their unsung and indispensable work.”

Story published on Women's Views on News, 7 May, 2013

Nobody gets off lightly in here

WVoN talked to Julie McNamara, writer of the play The Knitting Circle.

The Knitting Circle is about a a group of women locked up for decades in a Hertfordshire asylum.

Julie McNamara lived and worked as a nursing assistant and social work trainee in the Harperbury hospital in Radlett, Hertfordshire, in the 1980s.

That was on the eve of the introduction of Care in the Community, a government policy which saw the closure of most of the large asylums and their replacement with smaller group homes.

Harperbury was one of six ‘big bins’ in Hertfordshire and could accommodate up to 2,000 patients.

It survives to this day, in a smaller form, and is now known as Kingsley Green.

At the time she worked there, McNamara wanted to do something constructive for the women at the hospital, but Sister Mary Frances, an old style nursing sister working there, warned her that she could not be seen to be doing anything political.

"She told me the only way you can get away with it is if you do something for the hospital shop.

"She suggested I form a knitting circle," recalled McNamara.

Years later McNamara came across an old tape of the knitting circle conversations, which gave her the idea for the play.

"I heard those voices and I said whatever happened to those people on that tape?” she said.

So she put out feelers on the survivor networks and was amazed at the response.

"I was absolutely inundated.  I am still hearing from people with nowhere else to tell their stories.

"There were thousands and thousands of people who were put away for no good reason.

"I lived and worked with a woman who was put away for 48 years for stealing a bicycle aged nine.

"I met people who had children to their own fathers or grandfathers.

"These were young, young women. They were placed in these asylums ‘for their own protection’ and described as ‘morally deficient’."

The play is based on the testimonies of 70 women, including a woman who was born in an asylum and wondered why she had never been adopted.

"When she traced her mother she found she had done 34 years in this ‘bin’. She had been nursed for years in a women-only ward, and had 12 pregnancies. She had a PhD in Philosophy,” said McNamara.

"The only way these women survived was through their own love for each other and through utter mischief," said McNamara.

One of her favourite stories was from Anne from Enfield.

"Every Christmas the Friends used to give them chocolate brazils.  She had never liked brazil nuts so she sucked the chocolate off and gave the nuts to the nurses as presents.

"It took them four years to find out,” said McNamara.

McNamara started to think of new ways of working with actors, because she wanted them to hear the voices of the people who were telling their stories.

"I wanted them to hear from the patients themselves. I wanted them to hear from former staff members,” she said.

So she cast six actors and matched them with some of the survivors and staff.

The play is a moving and authentic portrayal of a group of patients and staff as they struggle to maintain their morality, dignity and individuality in a world where the only thing to look forward to is the next cup of tea.

And where, if you step out of line, you can expect a cold bath, a beating and a spell in isolation.

"Nobody gets off lightly in here," says Colin Shine, the charge nurse in the piece, played by actor Sanjiv Hayre.

McNamara says the people who gifted her their stories think of this as their play.

"It’s been enormous fun.  I’ve had huge mischief.

"The people who have given me their stories have stayed in touch with me for the past three years.  It’s become a huge tribe,” she said.

McNamara is now in talks with producers about turning the play into a film.

The Knitting Circle  will visit Oxford, Liverpool, Wolverhampton, Deptford and Bristol.

The performances have integrated sign language interpretation, and some, such as the performance at Liverpool's Bluecoat Theatre on 9 May, are audio described.

In Bristol, the cast will be joined on stage by some of the survivors, who will receive a public apology.

In February Ireland's Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, apologised on behalf of the Irish state to the survivors for the appalling treatment of hundreds of women in the Magdalene Laundries, and McNamara believes those who survived the asylums deserve the same from the British government.

When I heard that, I thought my God we’ve heard not even an acknowledgement of what women went through in the asylums, in the so-called long care system where, for the most spurious of reasons, women were thrown away for the rest of their lives.

Nobody is after compensation, she points out, but every single story-teller who gifted their stories to this play wants an apology.

McNamara believes services for today’s mental health patients are patchy.

"It’s chequered. It depends where you live, it depends whether you’ve got money, it depends whether you’ve got access to the protocols that allow you to be treated, it depends whether you’re black or white, 

whether you are rich or poor.

"It is an appalling time to be unwell in the mental health system in this country, because we are taking a huge retrograde step by selling off the health service and by decimating the welfare system.

"Nye Bevan must be spinning in his grave," she said.

Story published on Women's Views on News, May 3, 2013