Working Conditions of Women in the Textile Sector

It is certainly appropriate to establish a balance between producers, workers and consumers in the textile sector.

However, I would promise him most emphatically that, if I do not receive adequate guarantees, we shall not be dispatching these consignments. ments.

Is it not the case that by hammering away at this one sector we are weakening our position regarding services, textiles, intellectual property and dumping?

Sum Dany spoke with some of these textile workers, who recounted some of their stories of their working conditions.

Herencia textil andina .

SAMLAND (S). (DE) Mr President, I rise to speak against this request and in favour of debating this item.

Our first product was a textile where we analyzed 8,000 chemicals in the textile industry.

This opening up of markets, in itself so beneficial to the Community, will nevertheless have profound repercussions on the Community textile industry in terms of restructuring and loss of employ ment, especially in the peripheral regions where this industry is so important, in countries like Greece, Spain and Portugal.

In the short term, one country may see agriculture as particularly important, another textiles and a third the services sector.

On the contrary, I think that it is vigorously promoting the policy that it has been developing for the last four years for the purpose of making our agricultural products competitive at world level.

CUNHA OLIVEIRA (S). (PT) Mr President, the vicissitudes through which the textile sector in the European Community is passing are reflected also in the embroidery industry.

One of the fundamental problems which ought to be dealt with in the new textile agreement is the. elimination of regional quotas at the end of 1992.

The share of the developing countries in the Community's overall imports fell correspondingly over the same period from 46 to 30 , despite the growing importance of the newly industrialized countries in Asia.

It's the world's biggest importer and has a negative trade balance.

At the same time sought to resolve the crisis in the textile and in 1954 formed the National Textile Machinery Factory Toyoda of Mexico, which later became National Steel (Sidena), which established the three core businesses anchor factory in Sahagún City.

Apart from that, the transitional period should be divided into stages subject to the principle of progression, the first stage being longer for purposes of adaptation.

On January 3, five striking garment workers were shot dead in Phnom Penh while peacefully demanding a minimum livable wage.

We worked like dogs down in the garment industry every single day.

This rapid decline is one of the reasons for the growing poverty of many developing countries and the ever worsening debt crisis.

Those objectives show that the strengthening of the GATT rules and disciplines is an indispensable condition for integrating the textile sector in the system of the General Agreement.

And so in the reverse engineering process that we know about, and that we're familiar with, for the textile industry, the textile industry goes and unwinds the cocoon and then weaves glamorous things.

At a time when thousands of farmers are on the edge of bankruptcy, when the Americans are hardening their position on textiles and on services, I see no reason to ditch the CAP.

More than a 1000 workers died when a textile factory collapsed in Bangladesh.

This is a textile mill doing synthetic silk, an oil byproduct.

The adjustment of the Community's policies to these objectives is the subject of a monitoring process, and, in addition, the implementation of Community program mes such as, for example, the TERMI programme, supports their implementation ftom various stand points.

It is to be hoped that in the negotiations in progress a specific safeguard clause will be adopted during the transitional period to allow the MFA type bilateral agreements to continue in force and that another comprehensive, effective and operational safeguard clause will be accepted with opportunities for selective application in given circumstances.

This should not exclude specific programmes involving additional and special financing from the structural funds, as indeed Mrs Peijs proposes.

And it is no less important to strengthen the Community machinery for giving aid to convert and redeploy the textile industry, particularly in the area of research.

So it is urgent to devise an immediate programme for these industries mondernization, vocational training policies, aid for reconversion.

My fifth and final comment is to ask what, in general terms, the outcome of this Round ought to be.

VERNIER (RDE). (FR) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, one week ago exactly, a textile group announced the closure in my own town of Douai of a cotton spinning mill.

It means just this everything for me and nothing for anyone else.

Public sector Private sector ( 4 )

Just ask any professional, university educated descendant of a nineteenth century textile artisan.

On this point a few specific proposals have indeed been formulated and I have listened with great attention to those Members who have, very rightly, broached this question.

There is the modern sector, there is the informal sector and the traditional sector.

Moreover, the concept of freeing farmers from parasitical commercial operators and of directly supporting incomes that is being promoted in the Geneva talks is particularly constructive and will help to keep farmers on the land and give them pride in the quality and competitiveness of their products.

At the same time, I hope that the Council and the Commission will accept that Parliament should be represented at the rounding off conference, and that prior to that they will consult Parliament on the results of the negotiations within the framework of a specific legal flowing either from the Treaty or from the Stuttgart Declaration.

What will be left of Europe tomorrow ? The Commission must undertake resolutely to follow the lines it has set itself to protect Europe's industries and particularly the textile and clothing industry.

Sector

Lyubov Popova was also a member of the textile faculty, and in 1922, when hired to design fabrics for the First State Textile Print Factory, Popova and Stepanova were among the first women designers in the Soviet textile industry.

Airtex Design Group is moving part of its textile production from China back to the United States.

The notice, published in two local newspapers, alarmed human rights activists who fear that authorities might resort to violence again as garment workers have recently revived their petition to increase their monthly minimum wage.

However, the tough work environments that they face are often not noticeable from the outside, in particular in the textile industry, where the Ministry of Commerce estimates that 90 of workers in this sector are female, which totals approximately 300,000.