On 12 March 1998 the Australian Industrial Relations Commission found that tbe clauses of the Clothing Trades Award dealing with the regulation of outwork in the clothing industry were allowable in their entirety under section 89A2(t) of the Workplace Relations Act 1996. This decision preserves the mechanisms that will enable the award to be enforced according to the industry's Homeworker Code of Practice. This paper describes the union's community action campaign against unregu lated clothing outwork, a campaign that bas successfully focused public attention on the need to establish safeguards for outworker employment at a time when employee protection more generally is under threat. It attributes tbe progress in regulating outwork to the union's public awareness campaign and its uneven impact on the competitive position of employers, to a resultant change in employer attitudes and strategies, and to the government's desire to quieten opposition to its industrial relations agenda.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Age (1994) 'Migrants exploited: Ferguson', 30 October, p. 6.
2.
Association of Non-English Speaking Background Women of Australia (ANESBWA) (1996) 'Submission to the Senate Committee Inquiry into the Garment Industry Outworking', the association, Sydney.
3.
Australian Manufacturing Council (AMC) (1991 ) 'Networking and Industry Development', the council, Melbourne, April.
4.
Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission (1987) 'In the matter of an application by the Clothing and Allied Trades Union of Australia to vary the Clothing Trades Award 1982 in relation to contract work', Decision by Deputy President Riordan (19 IR 416), 7 April, Melbourne.
5.
Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission (1995) Decision by Deputy President Williams on Application to vary the Clothing Trades Award 1982 (1610/1995 IRCommA), Melbourne.
6.
Australian Chamber of Manufactures (1995) 'Submission for the Inquiry into Garment Industry Outworking', mimeo, Melbourne.
7.
Asian Women at Work, Inc. (AWW) (1997) 'Submission to the Industry Commission inquiry into the Textiles Clothing and Footwear Industries'. Asian Women at Work Inc., Sydney.
8.
Beneria, L. and Roldan, M. (1987) Crossroads of class and gender: industrial homework, subcontracting and household dynamics in Mexico City, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
9.
Booth, A. and Rubinstein, L. (1990) 'Women in trade unions in Australia', in S. Watson (ed.) Playing the state, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 121-36.
10.
Boris, E. (1996) 'Sexual divisions, gender constructions: the historical meaning of homework in Western Europe and the United States', in E. Boris and E. Prugl (eds) Homeworkers in global perspective, 19-38.
11.
Boris, E. and Prugl, E. (eds) (1996) Homeworkers in global perspective: invisible no more, New York, Routledge.
12.
M. Bray and V. Taylor (eds) The other side of flexibility: unions and marginal workers in Australia, ACIRRT Monograph no. 3, Australian Centre for Industrial Research and Teaching, University of Sydney, Sydney.
13.
Brooks, A. (1991) 'Marginal workers and the law', in Bray and Taylor (eds) The other side of flexibility , 44-74.
Conroy, P. (1993) 'A hidden workforce earning S20 a day', Age, 5 April, Melbourne, A6.
19.
Coulthard, A. (1997) 'The individualisation of Australian labour law', International Journal of Comparative Labour Law andIndustrial Relations, 13, 2, 95-112.
20.
Ellem, B. (1989) In women's bands? A bistory of clothing trades unionism in Australia, Kensington, New South Wales University Press.
21.
Ellem, B. (1991) 'Outwork and unionism in the Australian clothing industry', in Bray and Taylor, The other side offlexibility, 93-114.
22.
Fair Wear (1997) Fairwear Information Kit, Uniting Church of Australia, October 1997, Melbourne.
23.
Fairwear (1998) Summary of Homeworker Code of Conduct, http://www.uca.org.au/fairwear.
24.
Grieg, A. (1991) 'Sub-contracting: the seamy side of the clothing industry?' Urban Research Working Program Working Paper no. 27, Australian National University, Canberra.
25.
Harvard Business School (1994) 'Levi Strauss & Company: Global Sourcing (A)', Report no. 9-395-127, Haward College, Boston.
26.
Howard, R. (1990) 'Values make the company', Harvard Business Review, September-October, 134.
27.
Howe (1995) 'A paradise for working men but not working women: women's wage work and protective legislation in Australia, 1890-1914', in U. Wikander, J. Lewis and A. Kessler-Harris (eds) Protecting women: labour legislation in Europe, the United States and Australia 1880-1920, Urbana, University of Illinois Press.
28.
International Labour Conference (1995) 'Homework Report V(2)', International Labour Organisation , Geneva.
29.
International Labour Organisation (ILO) (1996 ) Convention Concerning Homework, ILO, Geneva, 20 June.
30.
Kilic, S. (1997) 'Who is an Australian woman?' Contemporary Australian Feminism: 2, Sydney, Allen & Unwin.
31.
Lyons, K. (1994) 'No sweat, says Chikarovski', Ragtrader (477), 7.
Marshall, the Hon. Justice and P. Ginters (1996) 'Homework and the International Economy', International Society for Labour Law and Social Security, 6th Asian Regional Congress, Hobart, Tasmania.
34.
Mayhew, C. and Quinlan, M. (1998) 'Outsourcing and occupational health and safety: A comparative study of factory-based and outworkers in the Australian TCF industry', Sydney, UNSW Studies in Australian Industrial Relations, Monograph no. 40.
35.
Mies, M. (1982) 'The dynamics of sexual division oflabour and integration of women into the world market', in L. Beneria (ed.) Women and Development, New York , Praeger.
36.
Mitter, S. (1986) Common fate, common bond: women in the global economy , London, Pluto Press.
37.
Mitter, S. (1994) 'On organising women in casualised work: a global review', in Rowbothant, S. and S. Mitter (eds) Dignity and Daily Bread.
38.
O'Donnell, C. (1988) 'Research into the situation of clothing outworkers in New South Wales', Journal ofOccupational Health and Safety4, 29-34.
39.
Parliament of Australia, (1996) ' Outworkers in the garment industry', Canberra, Senate Economics Reference Committee, December.
40.
Parliament of Australia, (1998) ' Review of the inquiry into outworkers in the garment industry', Canberra, Senate Economics Reference Committee, July.
41.
Peck, J. (1990) 'Outwork and restructuring process in the Australian clothing industry', Labour and Industry3, 2 and 3, 302-29.
42.
Peck, J. (1992) 'Invisible threads: homeworking, labour-market relations, and industrial restructuring in the Australian clothing trade', Euvironment and Planning D: Society and Space10, 671-89.
43.
Phizacklea, A. (1990) Unpacking the fashion industry: gender, racism and class in production, London, Routledge.
44.
di Piramo, M. (1995) 'Outworker Breakthrough: Target signs up', Ragtrader, 3, 1.
45.
Portes, A., Castells M. and Benton M. (eds) (1989) The informal economy: studies in advanced and less developed countries , Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press.
46.
Roinick, A.L. (1997) 'Muzzling the Offshore Watchdogs', Bobbin Magazine, February.
47.
Ross, A. (ed.) (1997) No sweat: fashion, free trade and the rights of garment workers, New York, Verso.
48.
Rowbotham, S. and Mitter S. (eds) (1994) Dignity and daily bread: new forms of economic organising among poor women in the Third World and the First , London, Routledge.
49.
Ryan, S. (1996) 'Association for all', Ragtrader—Smart , 3, 35, 27 June-13 July, 2.
50.
Sabel, C. (1989) 'Flexible specialisation and the re-emergence of regional economies', in P. Hirst and J. Zeitlin (eds) Reversing Industrial Decline, New York, St Martins Press , 17-70.
51.
Salmons, R. (1996) 'ACTU tells Senate of "exploited outworkers"', Australian Financial Review, 17 April.
52.
Sexton, J. (1994) 'Campaign targets home sweatshops', Australian, 26 July, 4.
53.
Sinclair, L. (1995) '''Joint'' separate approaches to outworker issues ', Ragtrader, 3, 12, 29 June, 1.
54.
Tassie, J. (1989) 'Out of sight—out of mind: outwork in Australia' , Adelaide, Working Women's Centre.
55.
Tate, J. (1996) 'Making links: the growth of homeworker networks' , in Boris and Prugl (eds) Homeworkers in global perspective.
56.
Textile Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia (1995) The bidden cost of fashion: Report on the national outwork information campaign, Sydney.
57.
Textile Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia (1996) Supplementary Submission of the Textiles Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia to the Inquiry into Outworking in the Garment Industry,. Sydney.
58.
Textile Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia (1997a) Second Supplementary Submission to the Inquiry into Outworking in the Garment Industry, Sydney.
59.
Textile Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia (1997b) 'Explanation of the Impact on the Change of Awards in the Outwork Clauses', mimeo, Sydney.
60.
Textile Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia (1998) Homeworker's Code of Practice.
61.
Textile and Fashion Industries of Australia ( 1995) 'Legitimate Outwork—An Important Part of the Australian TCF Industry', Today: Newsletter of the Council of Textile and Fashion Industries of Australia, November 1995, Melbourne.
62.
Webber, M. and Weller, S. (1998), 'Restructuring in the clothing sector', TCF Industry Study Working Paper 19/98, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Melbourne.
63.
Weiss, L. and Mathews, J. (1991) 'Structure, Strategy and Public Policy: Lessons from the Italian Textile Industry for Australia', Studies in Organisational Analysis and Innovation, no. 4, Industrial Relations Research Centre, UNSW.
64.
Williams, C. (1997) 'Women and occupational health and safety: from narratives of danger to invisibility', Labour History, 73.
65.
Wood, L. (1993) 'TCF Council gives up on tariffs, looks to exports ', Australian Financial Review, 22 November, 5.
66.
Working Women's Centre (1986) ' Women outworkers: a report documenting sweated labour in the 1980s', Footscray, Victoria.
67.
Workplace (1995) 'Slaves of fashion' , Workplace: the ACTU Magazine, Winter, 10-16.
68.
Worksafe Australia (1996) 'Submission to the Senate Economic References Committee re: Outworkers in the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Industry', Sydney.
