Although the Madras High Court ruled that garment workers should receive a minimum wage hike and be able to claim compensation for underpaid work from 2014 on, many factory bosses in Chennai have failed to do either. In many cases, they have defaulted or delayed payments since the ruling, with some enacting pay cuts. Workers have been forced to take time off work, forgoing a day’s salary to attend court in an attempt to claim the pay that is lawfully theirs. In Chennai alone, more than 150 claims, valued at around $7.6 million, have been filed against garment manufacturers. This figure only includes cases filed by government labor inspectors. Manufacturers have continued to fight against minimum wage hikes, arguing that the laws do not distinguish between skilled and unskilled workers, and that they make their factories less competitive in the market.
See "India's Low-paid Garment Workers Seek $7.6M Compensation", Voice of America, July 17, 2017