Rama Devi (name changed), a 33-year-old garment worker in Gurugram’s Udyog Vihar, has a packed schedule six days a week. She wakes up at 6 a.m., gets her three children ready for school, packs lunch for her family and manages to reach the factory at 9 a.m. Her work station is on the fourth floor, the top-most in the building, where at least 400 workers sit glued to their sewing machines for 8-12 hours a day, barring a 30-minute lunch break. For every eight machines, a garment presser works on finalised garments.
A tailor for 12 years, Rama Devi finds summers particularly difficult due to the heat, made worse by tin roofing, known for higher indoor temperatures compared to cement- or slab-roofed structures. However, she has no means of knowing the actual temperature on the factory floor without a recording device.
