Workers in a Changing Industry: Insights from Bangalore

By Varsha Susan Mathew

Walking into a garment manufacturing unit in Naganathapura, I noticed about a hundred women at work, colourful fabric moving from one station to another, and, through the journey, emerging as finished garments. This is a visual ingrained in my mind from my time conducting fieldwork in Bangalore. Till that point, I had only read about women employees forming a majority of the workforce in the sector, but seeing the sheer number was a very different experience. 

While aligning the Bangalore leg of our study’s fieldwork, I spent 10 days in the city, building contacts, scheduling appointments, collaborating with our local field researchers, visiting manufacturing hubs, and speaking with NGO workers and labour union leaders. As someone just starting out, this process was intimidating at first, but I soon got the hang of it and began enjoying the conversations with our diverse stakeholders. Two distinct narratives emerged from these interactions:

On the one hand, manufacturers and startup founders brought a hopeful perspective on the use of AI and automation in the sector, with increased productivity, a leaner workforce, and reduced production costs. On the other hand, conversations with workers highlighted their struggles for the fundamental necessities, such as a lack of access to restroom facilities, creches for their children, leave provisions, health-related concerns, etc. With the introduction of automation and the use of data in novel ways, they expressed their apprehensions about the additional level of surveillance, with one worker saying, “Earlier supervisor was watching. Now the system is watching.”

These contrasting views, from tech optimism to raw human struggles, left me reflecting on the equity aspect of this technological transformation and who really benefits from it. The question we started out with still remains: can AI and sustainability compliances truly uplift workers, not just cut costs?

This blog is part of our project titled “Gender Implications of Future of Work in South Asia: Insights from the Garment Manufacturing in Bangladesh and India”. The blog series is an attempt to share the insights we have gathered from the Indian cities, Delhi and Bengaluru, during the fieldwork process.