Labour issues, along with trade agreements, are a key factor in the sustainability and health of the garment industry in Fiji as well as its contribution to social and economic development. Garment manufacturing remains a highly labour-dependent process and labour costs are the most significant production factor (Dicken 2004: 331). Labour, working conditions, and particularly wages, are often contentious political issues worldwide in the garment sector. The ‘sensitivity’ of the industry is further compounded by the predominance of female labour in production. Dicken (2004: 332) estimates that 80 per cent of the global garment labour force is female. Often these workers have limited income and few other employment choices. Given the competitive price nature of the garment industry, this means that most employment is characterised by low wages and insecure employment.

The issue of wages and worker conditions is inseparable from that of where Fiji’s garment factories want to position themselves in terms of the global garment value chain. Wages and labour issues have been perennial problems throughout the Fijian garment industry’s short history and have really been seriously addressed only by a select few factories. Father Kevin Barr — a critic of Fijian development policy for a number of years — has lamented that, even during the growth years of the late 1990s, wages lagged behind the minimum wage for those living in urban areas, which was $A75 in 1999. At that time, garment workers’ wages were as low as $A31 for 45 hours’ work. Wages in the garment sector remain comparatively low by formal sector standards in Fiji. The experienced daily ‘minimum’ wage of $12.24 in 2002 fell significantly below the mean manufacturing wage of $14.93 in 2000, while mean wages across all sectors were $17.08 (RBF 2003: A42). As the Government wants wages to be related to productivity and profit, there remains a clear resistance to shifting to a higher-wage industry.

These issues are more pressing in terms of the garment industry because of the prevailing gender inequalities of income. Manufacturing had a worse gender/wage differential in 1997 than any other sector, with women’s pay 63 per cent that of men’s. Given that the garment sector employs about 12,000 women today, ‘there is no doubt that the Fiji garment industry, with its rapid expansion of employment for women but very low wages, presents a substantial conundrum for people concerned with the economic position of women’ (ILO/UNDP 1996: 16).

Note: A ‘learner’ is described as someone with less than six months’ experience though factories are not legally bound to this definition.

While some have argued that Fiji’s comparative advantage lies in its skilled and comparatively well-educated workforce, others still see the future health of the industry as being based on low wages. They consider that wage increases will be the final blow to the sector:

The cost of garments is not going up, but the price of making them is. In 1983 labour was 40c, it is now $1.15 — for someone with no experience! After five months this has to be $1.35. For good ones you need $1.70. Otherwise they are leaving the industry for shopkeeping jobs, etc., which pay more than $2. But basically these are school dropouts! (Factory owner interview 2003)

This has created a situation where garment employees can be accurately described as ‘the working poor’. Eradicating poverty in Fiji, as Father Barr has noted, is not only a matter of creating employment. Wages are also a critical issue. A recent study has shown, based on 1996 figures, ‘that 46.8 per cent of those who were in full-time employment earned wages below the poverty line. … Of these 67.9 per cent were women.’ Barr estimated that in 2002 the poverty line in urban areas was about $128–132 a week for a family with two or three children (Barr 2003: 200), while full-time garment wages averaged between $40–60 a week. Cawthorne (2000) has also estimated that approximately 80 per cent of employees are women earning wages that are below the poverty line. Even then, union organisers feel that the minimum wage is not met in many factories, a situation compounded by a lack of enforcement by the Ministry of Labour (Interviews 2003).

Responsibility for this ‘working poverty’ cannot be laid solely at the feet of the industry itself. Government policy and trade agreements have also played a role and perpetuated this situation. The Garment Industry Wages Council came into being in 1990 and set a wage level of between 65 cents and 85 cents an hour, well below other sectors, including manufacturing in general, and again, below the then poverty line. A critical factor in the profitability of the industry for owners has been in successive governments pursuing a ‘competitive wage policy’. This has been done through regular devaluations of the dollar, baulking at the idea of a minimum wage, and restrictions on trade unions: ‘Yet the policies may have done more to shape the structure of the industry than guarantee its expansion’ (ILO/UNDP 1996: 17).

The losses to the industry resulting from a low-wage strategy might be higher than the immediate gains. Even in the early years of the push to exporting it was noted that the Fijian garment industry had no chance of competing with Asian countries and that it needed to move towards a quality, value-added, niche-marketing strategy (FWRM 1986). To break out of the dependence on preferential agreements and reliance on the Australian market, the TCF Council of Fiji has argued that the industry needs to create higher efficiency, productivity and quality: ‘only by investing in human and managerial capital will the industry be able to create comparative advantage and keep pace with technological progress’ (TCF Council and MoC 2003: 23).

However, the garment industry remains dependent on producing cheap, poor-quality garments that cannot possibly compete with garments made in Asian countries whose costs of labour and utilities are five to 10 times lower than Fiji’s (TCF Council and MoC 2003: 23–4). Unfortunately, this vision, which is unrealistic and contrary to sustaining social development through employment, is how Australia and New Zealand see the garment sector, and these views are in many ways buttressed by the Fijian private sector and government.