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By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Jan 13 2004 (IPS) – ‘Dignity Return’ is a clothing label still on the fringe of Thailand’s sprawling world of garment factories, where globally known brands like Nike and Levis dominate. But it represents hope – and more – for the Thais churning out T-shirts and headbands bearing the stamp of this new label.

‘Dignity Return’ is a clothing label still on the fringe of Thailand’s sprawling world of garment factories, where globally known brands like Nike and Levis dominate. But it represents hope – and more – for the Thais churning out T-shirts and headbands bearing the stamp of this new label.

It is a name that conveys the spirit of the 30 men and women who have banded together to produce this small, yet symbolic line of clothing. It also relays how they feel – as workers with dignity – at their factory set amidst grey, dust-coated buildings in an industrial zone on the western fringes of Bangkok.

Kanchana Wongpan and Sunee Narmso, two women workers in their twenties from north-east Thailand, the country’s poverty belt, find rewarding the hours they spend behind sewing machines to produce clothing bearing the ‘Dignity Return’ brand and other products like children’s clothes.

“Working in this factory is different from factories I have worked in earlier. There is no exploitation or abuse. No labour violations,” says Sunee, a slim-built woman with shoulder-length hair. “This place is unique because of that.”

Pausing from the work she was doing on a shirt, Kanchana says that to begin with, the factory ”is completely owned by the workers” and there is freedom for the ”workers to express our views and get involved in decisions for the factory”.

The barely one-year old factory captures this sense of labour unity through its name too – the Solidarity Group, which will be sharing its brand of worker-friendly capitalism at a workshop at the World Social Forum (WSF) in Mumbai, India this week.
The WSF is an annual gathering of non-governmental groups and activists critical of the current world economic and political order.

Other details set the factory apart from the 2,641 garment factories that dot this country’s urban and rural landscape. The workers do not have to wear a uniform, music from radios fills the open, airy factory floor, and the walls are adorned with posters that celebrate labour rights.

‘Let’s Show Capitalists That Global Labour Solidarity Is Real’, declares one poster.

The venture was set up in March 2003 after most of the workers at the Solidarity Group, including Kanchana and Sunee, waged a three-month battle with the owners of the garment factory they had worked for till the end of 2002. That factory had collapsed due to mismanagement and over 800 workers were thrown out into the streets without any notice or promise of compensation.

Subsequently, the workers banded together to become factory owners, but not without having to depend on loans from a range of sources, including the ministry of labour, and their own friends. Some equipment, including a few sewing machines, had to be borrowed.

”It will take us about two years to repay the loans, and then this factory will be ours,” Manop Kaewphaka, who handles marketing, says on an optimistic note. ”We are trying to increase our client base. Eighty percent of the work we do are orders subcontracted to us.”

The Solidarity Group has a common monthly wage among its members – 4,500 baht per month (110 U.S. dollars) – and an equal load of working six days per week.

”We have no manager here, but three people have been nominated to check for quality,” adds Manop. ”The decisions are made at the regular meetings we have among us.”

For Thai labour rights activist Junya Yimprasert, the workers at the Solidarity Group are indulging in a pursuit that is far from naive. ”This unique venture shows the business sector that the workers have the capacity to run their own factories and in a more satisfying way,” Junya, the founder of Thai Labour Campaign, a Bangkok-based labour rights lobby, told IPS.

As significant, she observes, is the message it conveys to companies that exploit labour in the current climate of economic globalisation. ”This is a challenge to exploitation, to businesses that say ‘without us you die’. These factory workers are asserting that an alternative is possible, which is an idea that capitalists are not in favour of.”

Exploitation at garment factories has been a troubling feature for years in Thailand, asserts Wichai Narapaiboon, an officer at the recently opened Thai Labour Museum. ”The lower the technology in factories, the greater the exploitation.”

Often, he explained in an interview, workers are not aware of their rights and hence are unable to recognise the exploitation they are subject to. ”This is made worse by local laws, which do not protect workers who try to start unions in their factories.”

There are some 40,460 workers in the Thai garment sector. More than 65,000 workers are attached to the 741 weaving factories and a further 118,520 workers at the 1,332 knitting factories.

In 2002, the value of Thai textile and clothing exports reached 2.98 billion U.S. dollars, according to a study done by Junya.

Kanchana and Sunee are well aware of the new, yet risky road they have embarked on. ”If this factory proves to be a success, I will feel proud, because this is our own effort. An important victory for our struggles,” says Kanchana.

Sunee hopes that other garment workers would join their ranks by ”setting up their own factories”. Some factory workers are envious of us, she adds, because ”they do not have the same freedom, and because of the exploitation they face.”