The Relationship Between Sourcing Practices and Working Conditions in Lower-Tier Apparel Supply Chains (Feb 2023)

Labour abuses persist in apparel supply chains. Evidence suggests that sourcing practices can influence working conditions in the garment manufacturing and exporting phase (i.e. cutting, making and trimming or CMT) and in higher-tier suppliers.

However, there is no evidence of the impact of sourcing practices on working conditions in textile mills or lower-tier suppliers. For this reason, we conducted fieldwork in the knitwear garment cluster in Tamil Nadu, India, during 2021–2022.

Our analysis shows that the sourcing practices of brands have only limited influence on working conditions in textile mills in South India. This is because: a) there is no direct contractual relationship between brands and most textile mills in Tamil Nadu; b) textile mills in Tamil Nadu, while part of the garment manufacturing industry, effectively operate as a separate industry; c) intermediaries such as yarn traders are present and intermediate between mills and exporters; d) the yarn production process is highly standardized.

Thus, while there is an assumption that textile mills in Tamil Nadu depend on exporters for their survival, and these exporters could force the mills to comply with buyers’ ethical requirements, we found the exporters to be caught between the brands and the textile mills, squeezed financially from both sides and unable to exert significant pressure on the mills in terms of the conditions they set for their workers.

By contrast, textile mills face numerous domestic pressures in relation to price, labour and infrastructure that can influence working conditions.

We offer recommendations as to what brands, textile mills in Tamil Nadu, policymakers and civil society organizations can do to improve working conditions in textile mills.