INTRODUCTION

Sometime in the first week of February 2021, the global number of vaccinations exceeded the number of identified cases of COVID-19. As of this writing (13 March 2021), the number of cases has passed 118 million, while the number of vaccine doses administered exceeds 345 million. On average, the daily recorded global cases tally around 400,000, and each day also sees more than 8 million vaccine doses administered – a ratio of 20:1. However, 90 per cent of these vaccinations took place in only 11 countries – almost three-fourths of which in the United States, European Union (EU), United Kingdom, China and India, although, the first batch of supplies from the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) have also arrived in Ghana and Cote-d‘Ivoire (WHO, 2021d; Bloomberg, 2021).

This journey is only one-year old. In March 2020, Yan et.al (2020) published an article detailing the interaction between the now famous spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the ACE 2 receptor in human cells to which it binds – the expression of COVID-19 infection at the molecular level. Most of the vaccines now being developed, especially the mRNA and protein antigen viruses, aim to prevent this binding from taking place. The ability to move from a molecular understanding of the virus infection to multiple vaccines in less than nine months is an exceptional affirmation of human ingenuity.

Not all the news is good, however. The case fatality rate (CFR) for February 2021 was about 2.8 per cent, much higher than the cumulative CFR of around 2.2 per cent, although the CFR returned to the average level in March 2021. Also, the progress of vaccination appears very inequitable. Figure 9.1 shows the relationship of deaths normalized as a share of the urban population over age 65 to doses administered as a share of the urban population. A large number of countries that have high death rates have yet to vaccinate a discernible proportion of their populations, while the first countries to begin mass-scale vaccination programmes, such as the United States and United Kingdom, have gone far ahead. Yet both these countries and some European nations remain the most in need, as measured by current fatalities, represented by square markers.

As laid out in Chapter 4, labour-intensive production processes and payments below living wages are structural features of the global garment industry. Chapter 4 laid out a framework for understanding how global value chains (GVCs) drive down wages and structurally reproduce labour subsidies. This chapter, and Chapter 6 that follows, zoom in on the impact of wage subsidies borne by garment production line workers—a predominantly female workforce of internal and international migrants employed at the base of global production networks.

How do women production line workers subsidize the functioning of garment value chains? This chapter presents a two-part framework for understanding the extractive labour subsidies borne by women workers on garment production lines: overwork subsidies and discard subsidies. Each of these labour subsidies is largely experienced by women workers through bodily and embodied processes. Overwork subsidies refer to subsidies extracted from women workers through exploitative labour practices in the garment sector. In order to meet the fast-fashion production targets, garment workers on production lines work extended hours for below living wages.

Overwork subsidies manifest as physical calorie deficits: garment production line workers earn wages that permit them to afford food amounting to fewer calories per day than they expend working on production lines. This calorie deficit is magnified for women who also expend energy on unremunerated care and reproductive work. Prolonged calorie restriction has severe health implications, including reduced fertility and weaker bones. In short, women workers on garment production lines subsidize the global garment industry by absorbing health impacts with long-term consequences. These health impacts are compounded by poor working conditions, including long hours performing repetitive manual tasks under exposure to heat, noise, dust, and chemicals.

Yet another subsidy, which we refer to as a discard subsidy, captures the costs borne by women garment workers when they age out of garment sector employment. Due to industry preference for women below the age of 35, young women workers provide overwork subsidies resulting in long-term health costs until they age out of employment—typically before they become eligible to receive seniority or severance benefits. These outcomes for women workers are not just technical shortcomings in the organization of work but also structural outcomes of global garment production regimes.

The final chapter examines the challenges that have appeared over the last decade. New players and new capital structures make negotiations harder to manage. Applying old norms to novel practices is never easy. That said, today’s bankruptcy judge continues to call upon the same core ideas that have been with us from the start. Side deals that corrupt or even cloud the process are forbidden. The judge is not a dispenser of Solomonic wisdom, but a referee who ensures a level playing field. She insists that the parties follow the rules, but she does not enforce rules for their own sake nor does she allow her oversight to interfere with the flow of play. In the end, she leaves it to the parties to find a path forward. If they cannot find a future for the firm, she will not do it for them.

Chapter 3 narrates the three entrepreneurs’ early challenges adjusting to Za'atari. The camp is barren and devoid of activity in its first months of existence. White tents house residents, early mornings see long lines for meager bread rations, and residents protest about the severe shortage of resources. All three entrepreneurs struggle mightily. Yasmina is thankful that her newborn son Ashraf is healthy despite his premature birth, but she worries the environment surrounding him will stifle his growth. So she continues to hold out on working, praying she will return home to a peaceful Syria any day now. Falling into depression due to the lack of activity and resources, Asma runs away with her family to try to settle in nearby towns. A dearth of opportunity forces her to return to Za'atari, where she faces the tragic death of her son Ashraf. She fears the worst for Tamara and Maya, believing all hope for their education has died. Without any schooling options and separated from her friends, Malak sits alone in a small corner within her family’s tent and paints, releasing her emotions through her art from morning until night.

Introduction

Wages below living wages are a subsidy to capital, reducing wage costs. Since in such global value chains (GVCs) the surplus profits are captured by the brands, while suppliers basically get competitive profits, it is the brands that benefit from wages below the cost of production of labour power. But what is the form of this subsidy in social reproduction? Who bears the cost of this subsidy in the reproduction of labour power? The subsidy takes two forms—one is by the mining of women workers’ bodies and the policy of ‘overuse and discard’ of, particularly, women workers in garment factories when they age out of employment; and the other is by externalizing part of the cost of reproducing labour power from the factory and displacing it onto the rural economy of the households of migrant workers. The extractive labour subsidy achieved by mining of workers’ bodies was dealt with in Chapters 5 and 6. The rural subsidy in the reproduction of labour power is dealt with in this chapter.

There is yet another rural labour subsidy involved, which is in the production of cotton. This is through, first, low prices of cotton, which do not cover its cost of production, because farmer incomes are insufficient to meet the basic justice requirements of supporting elementary capabilities. The second is wage labour, including child labour, in cotton production that again violates basic justice requirements. This chapter begins with the rural connection of garment workers and then goes on to labour subsidies in cotton production.

Before proceeding to look at other forms of labour subsidies, we note an analytical issue in GVC analysis. GVC analysis is embedded (Gereffi 2019) in, meaning connected with, local economic and social processes. However, most GVC analysis tends to remain within the confines of the core factory—interrogating the relation of buyers and suppliers and of workers in supplier firms with their employers. At best, labour market conditions within which GVC labour takes place are included as a subject of analysis. This chapter shows that there is a need to look beyond the GVC itself to understand its functioning and dynamics.

The years 2020 and 2021 gave us a glimpse of the universe of complex development policy issues we will likely deal with in this century – issues unprecedented in scale and unpredictability. Let us begin with three vignettes that have profound implications for the themes covered in this volume.

First, the year 2020 marked a momentous tipping point from a planetary perspective. For the first time in the 4.5-billion-year history of the Earth, the weight of human-made materials will likely exceed that of all life on the planet. Artificial materials, such as metals, concrete, bricks and plastic now outweigh the biomass of all living plants and animals (Elhacham et al., 2020). Specifically, this is a once-in-an-epoch event where the anthropogenic artificial mass will exceed the trillion tons (1.1 teraton) of living biomass. The United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) 2020 Human Development Report explains the costs of such effects and details the enormous pressure we have placed on our fragile planet (UNDP, 2020). We may indeed be exiting the Holocene lasting the past 12,000 years, and entering the Anthropocene, a proposed geologic epoch in which humans have become the dominant force shaping the Earth (not the other way round).

Second, partly as a result of human squeezing and straining of local ecosystems, livestock and wildlife, an unfamiliar cellular microbe triggered the COVID-19 pandemic. Over five million people have died and the global economy lost at least US$10 trillion in unrealized output in 2020 alone (The Economist, 2021). Further economic damage and collateral social and health costs will continue to accumulate, as will the pandemic's impact on stretched state capacities and governance.

Third, the year 2020 marks a decisive shift in global geopolitics. The ‘Rebalance’ has accelerated, with countries of the Asia-Pacific now accounting for close to half of world output (a phenomenon last seen before the Industrial Revolution). In this regard, many economic historians see the past two centuries as a ‘detour’ for Asia, but a major difference exists between the pre-industrial era of Asian dominance and the present (Maddison, 2007; UNDP, 2013). Throughout human history until the 19th century, the average annual economic growth rate, rounded down to one decimal place, stood at zero.

Chapter 7 describes the continued development of the three entrepreneurs' ventures and the impact they make on the Za'atari community. Za'atari increasingly shows signs of life: shops pop up along the main road nicknamed the “Shams-Élysées," color and art can be seen on trailers and the camp's walls, social events become more common, and social initiatives occupy children’s time. Yasmina moves her business from her home to the bustling Saudi Market, beautifully decorates her new trailer, and expands her client base as her and Mona's reputation grows. Asma’s storytelling initiative, with the support of her apprentice Nawara, increases in popularity and regularly fills her trailer with children. She begins to see the fruits of her work, as the activities she does with the children reveal more aspirational thinking. Though she had planned to ignore art during school to focus on studies, Malak again turns to art as an outlet during the intensity of university. After winning prizes in competitions and with Treza’s inspiration, Malak finally launches her studio: "Malak Art." Malak and Treza create Instagram and Facebook pages to share Malak's work and accept orders, which come in regularly.