Work restructuring and recolonizing third world women: an example from the garment industry in Toronto

• Published in: Canadian woman studies 1998-03, Vol.18 (1), p.21
• Main Author: Ng, Roxana
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Business; Clothing industry; Employment; Females; Globalization; Home workers; Immigrant women; Immigrants; Migrant workers; Occupations; Social aspects; Software; Textile industry; Women
• ISSN: 0713-3235

The city of Toronto has been a major centre of garment production in Canada since industrialization. As an industry that makes use of what are assumed to be women's skills, the garment trade has always been an employer of female immigrant workers, firstly from Europe and later from Asia. According to Statistics Canada data in 1986, 94 per cent of sewing machine operators were born outside of Canada, as were 83 per cent of pattern-makers and cutters and 83 per cent of the employees in various textile industry occupations (The Toronto Star, 21 September 1992, A1, qtd. in Borowy, Gordon, et al). Whereas women constituted just 29 per cent of the workforce in manufacturing, 80 per cent of them were in the garment industry (Borowy and Johnson). Thus, the garment and textile sector was and continues to be a major employer of immigrant labour. Historically, homeworking and sweatshop operation were an integral part of the garment trade. With the formation of the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), firstly in the U.S. and later in Canada, garment workers became the few unionized female workforce members that enjoyed decent wages and employee benefits. Unlike some other sectors with heavy concentration of female immigrant workers, garment workers were protected by labour standard legislation and rights to collective bargaining. Since the 1980s, however, this has all changed. In the last 15 to 20 years, Toronto witnessed the closing of many garment factories, and massive worker layoffs. Employment dropped from 95,800 in 1988 to an estimated 62,800 in 1992, corresponding to the signing of the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the U.S. Between 1985 and 1992, the ILGWU membership dropped by 60 per cent, bringing the unionization rate from a high of up to 80 per cent to below 20 per cent.(f.1) (Borowy, Gordon, et al.). What has happened? In this article I will review briefly the restructuring of the garment industry leading to the massive displacement of workers and manufacturers. I will argue that the plight of garment workers is the conjuncture of changing relations of gender, race, and class in the current globalization climate. While globalization is heralded by transnational corporations and nation-states as the ultimate and inevitable progress of our civilization, I will show that it has differential and differentiating effects on groups of people by virtue of their gender, race, and class locations in society. I will argue further that the ch