"As US Tariff Shock Hits, TN’s Women Garment Workers Are Paying A Steep Price", 27 August 2025

Saraswati, a 35-year-old garment worker in Dindigul, didn’t know what “tariffs” were until orders slowed in her factory and she, along with many women on her production line, was put on rotational shifts...

“...It means our salaries are halved,” she said. Now...she is hearing that layoffs are spreading in the region’s factories that supply mainly to US fashion brands...

She earns around Rs 12,000 a month, but with her income now cut to about Rs 6,000 she will have a hard time paying Rs 5,500 every month to a microfinance agency...

In early August 2025, the US first imposed a 25% “reciprocal” tariff on Indian goods. Less than a week later, it added another 25% “penalty” tariff...

...scaling down means that entire garment production lines supplying to US markets are shut until further notice, with workers either told to stay home without pay or shifted around to other lines with fewer hours. The first to be let go are usually contract workers like Seema, employed on short-term or piece-rate arrangements without the social security protections of permanent staff...

For Erode-based Anitha, 26, the tariff shock comes on the heels of another disaster. Last year, heavy rains brought down the roof of her house...she and her mother were forced to borrow Rs 2.5 lakh from a moneylender at a monthly interest rate of 10%.

The two work at the same garment factory, and their wages...are barely enough to manage the repayments. Now, as US orders slow, the factory has begun cutting production and moving workers onto rotation lines...Currently, Anitha gets to keep her own job only because her line produces for a European brand...

Wage insecurity is now the biggest source of fear...said Navamani, the general secretary of the Tamil Nadu Textile and Common Labour Union.

“We are already hearing from workers that some factories under severe financial pressure, with no cash in hand, are saying they may delay monthly wages or final settlements...,” Navamani said...

In Tamil Nadu’s rural textile belt, where domestic violence and dowry-related abuse remain widespread, steady employment in the textile export industry has given many women the ability to live apart from abusive partners and raise their children independently...

...trade unions report that some factories are retaining migrant women who live in factory hostels while laying off local workers. Migrants are often preferred because they can be pushed into longer hours for lower pay, with little room to resist, said union activists.

“Right now, migrants are so afraid of losing their jobs that they accept even worse terms than the already poor ones they had...” said Navamani. “That fear...means they can’t negotiate or refuse unfair changes at work...”...

Aishwarya, a worker from Jharkhand, described the pressure this creates: “Layoffs mean we don’t just lose our wages—we also lose our rooms in the hostel...”

Devi...had planned to return only for her wedding. But with rotational shifts and layoffs beginning in her factory, she is reconsidering...

While her line continues to operate, she has already watched other sections shut down after buyers refused to accept goods unless suppliers absorbed the tariff costs...

Small and medium-sized suppliers have been left particularly vulnerable by the trade crisis. Few have the financial reserves to absorb tariff shocks or withstand delayed payments, and those heavily dependent on US brands, without a diversified base of European and domestic brands, are being hit the hardest...

“Many American brands producing for European markets are also pausing operations in India because they don’t want to take the risk of building an inventory that later becomes too costly and ends up blocked,” said a production manager from Erode who did not wish to be named.

At the same time, some suppliers report that European brands are using the desperation of Indian suppliers to push prices down, fully aware that peak-season production for the coming Christmas and New Year season makes it almost impossible for factories to say ‘no’....said the head of sourcing at another garment supplier...

Some suppliers said they are themselves heavily indebted, having taken loans for machinery or expansions. Tariff shocks, combined with buyer pressure to cut prices, could push many into default, a crisis that could accelerate layoffs...

“The crisis we are in is, in many ways, similar to the debt spiral facing workers. They are poorer, but in the global context, we are being squeezed just as hard by some of the richest global fashion brands. We have produced for them for years, but now, over phone calls, they threaten us: accept the tariff costs yourselves, or we will take our orders elsewhere.”...

Labour lawyer Shreela Manohar noted that the state could, as it did during the pandemic, impose a moratorium on debt collections, issue special ID cards to affected workers, and provide short-term unemployment allowances to help families survive the shock...

Suppliers, unions, and civil society groups also stress that brands must share the risk, not shift it downwards. Lavinia Muth of the German Partnership for Sustainable Textiles, underlined this demand: “Companies must honour contracts on goods already in production, avoid retroactive price cuts, and maintain payment discipline. On-time payments are the cheapest and easiest way to prevent wage arrears. If orders must be moved elsewhere, brands should follow responsible exit protocols — notice, settlement of dues, and redeployment support – rather than abandoning suppliers and workers overnight.”

Unions emphasise that suppliers themselves, despite their financial pressures, must not pass all costs onto workers, especially women...

Where disruptions are temporary, unions propose rotating workers across lines producing for US, European, and domestic brands — so that instead of retrenching those on US brand lines, everyone takes turns working on the existing European or Indian brand lines. This way, all workers share the available work, even if at lower rates, without anyone being pushed out entirely.

Civil society and philanthropy, lawyers and unions said, could help fill urgent gaps. This includes paralegal support and targeted outreach, particularly for the most vulnerable—single mothers, hostel-dwelling migrants, and survivors of gender-based violence...

Finally, labour advocates insist that this crisis should spark broader, practical solutions to reduce over-dependence on US fashion brands so that tariffs do not become a form of sanction crippling India’s largest export clusters and undermining economic independence...

In the short term, she noted, suppliers could even be permitted to re-label goods originally meant for the US market and redirect them elsewhere. “Yes, re-labelling might violate brand contracts,” she admitted. “But when those same brands are refusing to honour commitments, threatening suppliers over phone calls, and abandoning workers, why shouldn’t India consider extraordinary measures to protect its own people?”

“We have no say in these big decisions, but we are the first to pay the price,” said Tiruppur worker Sangeetha...

As Madhulika T argued: “Every crisis exposes the same fault line – when brands push risks down, workers at the bottom pay.” She added that garment-producing countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and others may also need to act together, uniting to hold global fashion brands in the US and Europe accountable when they do business here...