About 50,000 powerlooms have been destroyed and sold for scrap in Coimbatore and Tiruppur districts in the last three to four years because of unviable prices that the job workers (weaving for wages) get, S.E. Bhoopathi, president of the Federation of Coimbatore-Tiruppur district Job Working Powerloom Owners Association, said.
Nearly 1.25 lakh powerloom workers have been on strike in the two districts since Wednesday, resulting in a loss of ₹30 crore worth of production of fabric. Job working powerloom weavers are demanding an increase in wages for the cloth woven by them for the master weavers.
There are about 20,000 looms that make the “Palladam variety” fabric and about 1.25 lakh looms that make the “Somanur variety” fabric. The units that make the “Palladam variety” get wages that are viable. “We (those who weave the Somanur variety) get just 60 paise – 70 paise as wages for a metre of fabric we weave. It has become unviable to continue operations with these wages. Already about 50,000 powerlooms have gone to scrap. More powerlooms will go out of production if the wages are not revised,” he said.
The wages were revised in 2022 but reduced within three months. The job workers have been demanding revision of wages since 2024 and government officials have conducted 10 rounds of talks. However, the master weavers are not participating in the talks regularly and the wages remain low. “We conducted two protests. But there are no results. Hence, we decided to stop production. The government has called us for talks in Coimbatore on March 25 and the Tiruppur District Collector has called the master weavers for talks on March 24,” he said.
Published – March 20, 2025 08:36 pm IST
