Where women elevate shop floors
The Hindu
Where women elevate shop floors
Tamil Nadu accounts for over 40% of the entire women workforce in India’s manufacturing sector. It is evident not only from multiple field surveys but also from the shop floors of industries in the State. According to the Annual Survey of Industries in 2019-20, released by the Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, of the 15.8 lakh women working in industries in India, 6.79 lakh or 43% are in Tamil Nadu. The State’s rate of women workforce participation is higher than the national average.
The annual report of the Periodic Labour Force Survey for July 2022-June 2023, released by the National Sample Survey Office, showed that the rate of women workforce (aged 15-59), in both urban and rural areas, was 43.9% as against the national average of 39.8%.
With the traditional leather, textile, and automobile sectors and the emerging sectors such as electric vehicles, solar cell manufacturing, electronics, and footwear hiring women, the State’s share is likely to increase further, experts say.
“The reason for the high women workforce in Tamil Nadu is that girls are bold and courageous, and families are supportive so that they can go to work,” says Lakshmi Umapathy, Factory Manager, Caterpillar India Private Limited, Tiruvallur. Before Caterpillar, Ms. Umapathy had worked on the shop floors of Cummins India in Madhya Pradesh, Schneider Electric in Chennai, Kurlon in Bengaluru, and Kirloskar Brothers’s all- women factory in Coimbatore.
“When I started out as a shop floor engineer in 1994, there were no, or even enough, restrooms. But now, there are policies and government initiatives to make sure that companies and even shops and establishments have adequate safety measures for women workers,” she points out.
One of the early trendsetters in hiring women for the shop floors was Titan Company Limited, a venture that the Tamil Nadu government and the Tata Group established before liberalisation. “In the late 1980s, integrating women into the workforce was a Herculean task. Cultural barriers, early marriages, and safety concerns acted as deterrents,” recalls S. Deenadayalan, former Head of Human Resources, Titan Watches.
Undeterred, Titan connected with school headmasters and parents. It offered the workers comprehensive training that encompassed essential life skills such as menstrual hygiene and personal safety. For its workers, the company started transit houses with foster mothers. It also helped them build houses under the Titan Housing Scheme and buy four-wheelers. The children of many workers are highly educated and employed in India and abroad. In fine, it was not merely about employment but about empowerment, an approach that ensured their safety and fostered their holistic growth, Mr. Deenadayalan adds.