Exploited or Entrepreneurs?

Home-based workers are an ever increasing proportionof the Australian clothing industry's workforce. With decreasing tariff protections and increasingcheap imports of apparel into Australia home-basedworkers offer both competitive labour costs but mostimportantly quick turnaround times. The media andmany academic studies focus on this supply-sidestory of how home-based workers underpin afundamentally transforming industry. This book turnsour attention to the lives of the (mostly) migrantwomen who perform this work. Focusing on a newlycollectivising group of women entrepreneurs andemployees who do industrial sewing in their homesthis study documents a progressive policy shiftthat occurred in Sydney Australia. The workgrapples with the complexities of mounting a case forstate endorsed minimum wage and condition protectionswithout an over-reliance on victimhood storylines. This analysis sheds light on a usually invisiblesubject the home-based worker and should be ofinterest to those organising in the industryfeminist scholars and industry policy analysts.