The Collective Working Body: Rethinking Apparel Workers' Health and Well-being during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Sri Lanka

IF 1.3 Q3 INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS & LABOR
S. Wickramasingha, G. De Neve
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引用次数: 5

Abstract

This article contributes to debates on global apparel workers’ health and well-being through an examination of how Sri Lankan workers were affected and treated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on qualitative interviews in and around the Katunayake Export Processing Zone, the article takes the Sri Lankan apparel industry as a case study. It reconceptualises the “precarious working body” as a “collective body” in order to demonstrate how workers’ health was a matter of collective precariousness. Workers’ health was not only dependent on that of others around them inside densely populated factories, but was also shaped by systemic material and discursive practices that affected workers collectively. These material practices included labour control and incentive structures that prevented workers from seeking medical attention and taking leave when needed, which in turn led to the spread of the virus across factories. The discursive practices comprise the social stigma and devaluation of women apparel workers that facilitated the blaming of workers for spreading the virus and enabled their inhumane treatment during the pandemic response. We argue that conceiving of apparel workers as a “collective body” enables a recognition of the systemic forces that create ill health at work and that expose certain (but not all) working bodies to the risks of infection. KEYWORDS: labour regimes; social stigma; occupational health; apparel industry; COVID-19
集体工作机构:在2019冠状病毒病大流行期间重新思考斯里兰卡服装工人的健康和福祉
本文通过研究斯里兰卡工人在COVID-19大流行期间如何受到影响和治疗,为全球服装工人的健康和福祉进行辩论。本文在对卡图纳亚克出口加工区及其周边地区进行定性访谈的基础上,以斯里兰卡服装业为个案进行研究。它将"不稳定工作机构"重新定义为"集体机构",以表明工人的健康是一个集体不稳定问题。在人口密集的工厂里,工人的健康不仅取决于周围其他人的健康,而且还受到影响工人集体的系统材料和话语实践的影响。这些实质性做法包括劳工控制和激励结构,阻止工人寻求医疗照顾和在需要时休假,这反过来导致病毒在工厂间传播。这种口头的做法包括对服装女工的社会污名化和贬低,助长了对女工传播病毒的指责,并使她们在大流行病应对期间受到非人道待遇。我们认为,将服装工人视为一个“集体”,可以使人们认识到在工作中造成健康不良的系统性力量,并使某些(但不是全部)工作机构暴露于感染风险之中。关键词:劳动制度;社会歧视;职业卫生;服装行业;新型冠状病毒肺炎
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来源期刊
Global Labour Journal
Global Labour Journal INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS & LABOR-
自引率
12.50%
发文量
26
审稿时长
39 weeks
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