Working Women of the World (2000)

'Working Women of the World', a critical and powerful documentary film exposing the treatment of garment production employees will be screened at French Embassy, 11 Barnes Place, Colombo 7. The French production, directed by Marie France Collard will have two screenings at 3 pm on Tuesday November 14 and at 6.30 pm on Wednesday on November 15. Focusing on Levi Strauss & Co., 'Working Women of the World' (Ouvrières du monde- 53 mints, 2000) follows the relocation of garment production from Western countries to nations such as Indonesia, the Philippines, and Turkey, where low wages are the rule and employee rights are nonexistent. The film introduces us to women like Yanti, a 26-year-old Indonesian who works ten hours a day, six days a week, for $60 a month (the price of a pair of Levi's in Jakarta). Conditions at the factory are dreadful. There are five filthy toilets for 2000 women, and with no ventilation, the factory is an inferno. Any protest is met with immediate intimidation and increased surveillance until the offender quits. Working Women of the World also presents the stories of her western counterparts who are losing their jobs. Maria Therese worked in the Levis factory in Yser La Basse, France, and was a union representative there. In interviews, she describes the work, the wage structure, and her negotiations with management and the government after the closure announcement. Behind the new gospel of free trade are the real lives of women in the North and South. Filmed in Indonesia, the Philippines, Turkey, France, and Belgium, Working Women of the World puts these women's stories into the larger history and development of globalization. Aesthetically careful and theoretically rigorous, this film is critical and hopeful, and it also conveys a kind of dialectical communication between workers from overdeveloped countries and Third World countries.