ABSTRACT
The Australian textiles, clothing and footwear (TCF) industry is at an interesting crossroads, with much production shifting offshore, consistent with the general trends of globalization and trade liberalization described elsewhere in this volume. However, a significant percentage of garments sold in Australia are still manufactured in the country, and a stubborn 70 percent of those items are made in people’s homes. According to Michele O’Neil, the National Secretary of the Textile Clothing & Footwear Union of Australia (TCFUA), the vast majority of clothing work in Australia is done in workers’ homes. 1 The last major study by the TCFUA into the industry was completed in 1995, since which time the number of workers in the formal sector and informal sector has dropped by around half. 2 The TCFUA now estimates the number of homeworkers to be 50,000 in the formal TCF sector and around 150,000 in the informal sector.
