Virender Gaur, president, Centre of Indian Trade Unions Delhi, who was addressing the meeting said that it is very essential to understand that both governments, Delhi Government led by the Aam Aadmi Party and the Union government of the Bharatiya Janata Party, are taking anti-workers measures at an unbridled pace.

He said, “The question of privatisation is looming large on our heads. If we take the examples from the Delhi-NCR region, we saw a successful struggle at Central Electronics Limited (CEL) where workers won their fight to save this precious public sector undertaking from privatisation. We are witnessing similar struggles at Container Corporation of India, Life Insurance Corporation of India, New Delhi Municipal Corporation, and even Delhi Jal Board where I worked for 38 years.”

Talking to NewsClick at the protest, he said, “The most prominent example that we are witnessing of imposition of privatisation is through companies being deprived of human resources. There is no direct employment even when it is clear that 100 average employees are retiring per month.”

“When I started my job at Delhi Jal Board, it had a 35,000-strong workforce. Now, it has been reduced to 14,000 workers. It is happening at a time when the length of water and sewage pipelines has multiplied several times. The needs of the city have multiplied. It is interesting that it has a workforce of 14,000 workers whereas it has 17,000 pensioners. So, we held this convention to finalise the charter of the campaign and mobilise thousands of workers at Jantar Mantar where students, young people and people from all walks of life will join us,” said Gaur.

When asked about the efficacy of Jantar Mantar as a site for Mahapadav to build pressure, Gaur emphasised that it does have an impact and government will have to listen. “Wrestlers have been sitting at Jantar Mantar peacefully and its impact is such that PM Modi who would speak for hours on trivial issues has not uttered a word on the women wrestlers and their accusations regarding sexual harassment. It will be a historic struggle to remember in Delhi.”

Birju Nayak from Mazdoor Ekta Committee who is representing unorganised sector workers at the convention told NewsClick that the workers in Delhi are facing a strange phenomenon post-pandemic where wage rates have reduced significantly forcing both men and women in the family to seek work.

Talking to NewsClick, he said that the minimum wage in Delhi for unskilled workers is Rs 17,234 per month whereas they are only getting only Rs 9,000-Rs 12,000 per month. It has forced women in the family to seek work. “It is perturbing for the workers as health and education of them and their children are impacted. We just had a story of one worker who said that he has been visiting Employees State Insurance Hospitals since childhood. In childhood, he never heard that workers were asked to come again to campus to get medicine or buy them from chemists from their own pocket. Now, it is quite rampant,” he claimed.

Nayak added that the denial of rights to workers has exposed their children to the world of crime. He explained, “We are seeing increasing cases where young people in bastis are resorting to crimes to meet the ends. It’s a less discussed topic but children are ending up in Tihar Jail and becoming professional criminals. Had their parents been paid well and their health and education taken care of, we could have saved them.”

Dharamender Kumar Verma, general secretary, Trade Union Coordination Centre (TUCC), told NewsClick that the living and working conditions of women workers are more exploitative when it comes to the unorganised sector. “We know that women are very much affected by inflation as they handle household chores. Gas cylinders are expensive, grocery items are expensive and so are even matchbox sticks. When they move to factories, they face discrimination and received lower payments. Domestic workers have told us stories that they cannot use the toilets in apartments which they clean. Does PM Modi not know about our plight? He says he used to sell tea. We never saw it but we know that he is selling railways. Workers are infuriated and coming to Jantar Mantar on August 9 in large numbers.”

Sidheshwar Shukla, who coordinates among the unorganised sector workers, said that the central trade unions and federations have been finalising plans to hold dharnas at labour commissioners’ offices and district magistrate offices in the next three months and finally hold a Mahapadav in the month of August to oppose labour codes, privatisation and for other demands. “It’s the first anniversary of the Mundra fire where workers died. There are questions about the safety of workers, their livelihoods and conversion of perennial posts turning into contract jobs, displacement of workers in contract-based jobs. All trade unions felt that we should come to a stage to call for action. Today we held this convention as part of a larger plan and we will hit the streets in large numbers,” added Shukla.

Courtesy: Newsclick

The post Delhi: Thousands of Workers to Assemble at Mahapadav on August 9 to Oppose Privatisation, Labour Codes appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Video Courtesy: cjp.org.in

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A Wave of Workers Protest: New Delhi, Nov 9-11, 2017

The post Workers Demand Minimum Living Wage appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
These contract workers, who sweep streets, collect garbage and clean sewers, were not entitled to health and other benefits, vacation, rest days and pension. They will now get back pay of two years and employee benefits, such as weekly offs and medical leave without a pay cut.
 
Milind Ranade, a textile engineer who is a general secretary of the Mumbai’s sanitation workers’ union–he got involved when he once saw workers eating lunch perched atop a pile of garbage, found they were on contract and not entitled to a lunch room–told IndiaSpend that the contract system was exploited by municipal corporations nationwide, encouraging exploitation, perpetuating poor working conditions and apathy towards the workers, who are usually Dalits.
 
Indeed, on July 12, 2017, 6,000 contract sweepers in Bangalore struck work on similar grounds. Paid Rs 5,000 a month with no sign of a promised hike, toilets and safety gear, they said they were treated like bonded labour, with passbooks and ATM cards confiscated by contractors, who are supposed to pay salaries directly into bank accounts. The government later promised that these workers would get regular jobs.
 
The Mumbai union, called Kachra Vahatuk Shramik Sangh (KVSS), first challenged the contract status of sanitation workers in a Mumbai industrial tribunal in 2007, but the BMC challenged the order in Bombay High Court. In December 2016, the High Court dismissed the BMC’s case. The BMC appealed to the Supreme Court and lost again.
 
Ranade was (and is) a member of a communist outfit called the Lal Nishan Party (Red Flag Party), when he and other colleagues formed the KVSS in 1997. Its first demand they had was that the BMC provide drinking water to contract workers. These workers did not have changing rooms or baths, which they particularly need because working with the city’s trash and filth makes them smell. Since then the union has succeeded in getting workers raincoats, boots, provident fund, medical leave, minimum wage (Rs 13,936 per month;  536 per day for Zone A which includes Mumbai, according to April 2017 notification), drinking-water taps and wash areas.
 
Ranade quit his job at a pharmaceutical company, Extrusion Processes, to launch the KVSS and works on a voluntary basis. His wife, Ashwini Ranade, is also a member of Lal Nishan Party but she is also a lecturer at Acharya Marathe College, supporting the family while Ranade continues his battles with the government.
 
Ranade spoke to IndiaSpend in trade union’s office at Shramik, Dadar, which serves as a party office for many trade unions in Mumbai.
 
How many workers are on temporary contracts in the BMC? What does the April 2017 Supreme Court verdict that 2,700 such workers get regular jobs mean for them?
 
So, there are 28,000 permanent workers in the BMC and 6,500 contractual workers. The Kachra Vahatuk Shramik Sangh is the biggest union among contractual workers with more than 5,000 contractual workers as members. There are four cases filed by us pending (in courts) for their permanency–to become permanent workers. First, we have to approach the labour commissioner, then the industrial tribunal, then the High Court and then the Supreme Court. Apart from this case of 2,700 workers which is settled, there is another case of 580 contractual workers pending in industrial tribunal, and two other cases of 1,300 workers and 1,100 workers. The first case which was filed in 1997 was settled in 2003 and 1,204 workers were made permanent. We went for an out-of-court settlement, even though we could have won it because it took 20 years, and at the end of the 20 years, the BMC would have to pay Rs 200 crore as compensation to the workers. So, for us, it was a matter of time; for the BMC, it was a matter of money. With the sanction of the government of Maharashtra, there was an out-of-court settlement. So, of 6,500 (workers on contract), 5,000 now have permanent jobs through the various cases.
 
When did the BMC first use the contract system to hire sanitation workers? In what way does the contract system deny benefits?
 
BMC started hiring contract workers in the 1980s. They were meant to lift debris. The word ‘debris’ was used to camouflage the fact that they were lifting garbage, since debris is not the responsibility of the corporation, but lifting refuse and garbage is. So, these particular workers were removing debris from where? The dustbin. No one throws debris in a dustbin. They (BMC) defined debris as cow-dung, hospital waste, domestic waste, hotel waste, silt–essentially everything.
 
Under the garb of debris, these workers were doing BMC’s work. This was in the 1980s.
 
Then, after we won the case in 1999, the BMC stopped all the contract work, then they restarted it in 2004. This time they called it the Hyderabad pattern.
 
What is the Hyderabad pattern? Each contractor employs less than 20 workers. If you have 20 workers, all the labour laws are applicable. So, to get out the purview of the labour laws, they kept it at 18 workers.
 
In BMC, there are now more than 350 contractors, every employer using less than 20 workers. Now under the present Narendra Modi government, the limit has been raised to 50 in the name of ease of business. Anywhere in India, the safai (sanitation) work is done only by dalits, no other castes are willing to do this work. They will prefer to be unemployed than do this work.
 
In some places, you find Brahmins are permanent workers, but they are not actually doing it (sanitation work). The salary is Rs 21,000, he is paying a dalit to do the work at Rs 5,000, while is on paper the employee is marked ‘present’ and gets Rs 15,000, while Rs 1,000 is given for officials as dasturi (commision) to keep quiet.
 
So, all over India, workers who are working for sanitation department are dalits, that is there is 100% reservation, and no one has challenged this. No one asks why there aren’t Marathas, Thakurs or Kayasths (upper castes) working in this field.
 
Each state now uses contract workers for statutory (fulfilling core functions of the corporation) and perennial work. This means only dalits are becoming contract workers, but instead of getting permanent employment with some social security, they work with no job security or social security, without any protection of law… they are out of the purview of the law, so you do not need to give them provident fund, gratuity or anything else.
 
Everywhere in India, these dalit safai workers are getting less than minimum wage: Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Gujarat, Maharashtra. This is called the Hyderabad pattern because it (the system) was invented in Hyderabad. Under this pattern, workers are called volunteers, a salary is termed honorarium. With every contractor, there are 80 workers, the contract is for seven months, so that you don’t complete 280 days. If you complete 280 days, you have some grounds to ask for permanency. So, you are kept from every benefit.
 
How many contract workers are there across India?
 
No one knows, but the numbers are in thousands. In Mumbai, there are 6,500, there are another 9,000 working in dattak vasti (slum areas where community organisations do the sanitation work), where they are not even counted as contract workers. In Thane, there are 2,000, in Navi Mumbai there are 6,000, and it (Navi Mumbai) is the only corporation without a single permanent safai worker. In Nashik there are 500, in Pune there are 500. In Kolhapur, 500 contract workers were paid 50% less than the minimum wage, and we had to fight for two years in the (Bombay) High Court and then they got arrears of minimum wage, which was Rs 3.7 crore, or Rs 1 lakh per worker.
 
In Thane, workers are not paid arrears of minimum wages for 24 months, so per worker the arrears are Rs 120,000. In Nagpur and Amravati also, they (contract workers) are not paid (minimum wages).
 
The worst thing is that for every set of workers, you have to go to the court; you have to start with the industrial tribunal and work your way up to the higher courts..
 
How do companies with contract workers manipulate the system so these workers are kept from regular jobs?
 
When we formed the union, all (contract) workers in Mumbai were paid Rs 2,000 less than minimum wage until 2005. So, 6,500 multiplied by Rs 2,000 is Rs 1.3 crore per month. This amount was siphoned by municipal officers and contractors. This is how the nexus was created. These are dalit workers, they have migrated from drought-prone areas, they live in jhuggi-jhopdis (slums), which are demolished every now and then, so they have no ration cards. These are most vulnerable workers and being dalits, they are the easiest to exploit. They don’t get social security–no boots, gloves or masks. Hundreds of workers have died on duty, but no one knows.
 
The BMC’s own study in 2015 revealed that 1,386 sanitation workers died in six years due to poor working conditions.
 
These figures doesn’t include contract workers, only permanent workers. Their life expectancy is shortened, many die between 40 and 55 years of age and among those who do the full length service, very few reach 70.
 
Have the lives of sanitation workers been affected in any way after the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan?
 
Yes, they are required to do more work. No one bothers whether they (sanitation workers) get full payment or not. If their provident fund is deposited in their accounts or if they get ESIS (Employee State Insurance Scheme). No one comes if there is an accident. Who is keeping Bharat swacch (clean)? The Prime Minister, who holds the broom for five minutes? Who is keeping India clean? Chief Ministers, MPs, film stars or cricketers?
 
It is the worker, and the contract worker works even more than the permanent worker. They work for eight hours. Working eight hours in an office and the hours spent sweeping are different. Imagine, where will they eat? Where will they wash? Are they not humans? Should they not get water to wash? Where will they sit?
 
All the laws, the guidelines, the acts are on the paper, but if you want to find out the reality, go to the labour commissioner’s office and ask, how many safai workers are there in Maharashtra and how many get minimum wage.
 
(Yadavar is principal correspondent with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

The post ‘Sanitation Workers Clean Our Cities, But They Are Denied Even Minimum Wage’ appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Years of struggle for Tamil Nadu garment workers paid off when the Madras High Court’s dismissed about 550 petitions filed by garment employers opposing a government order to increase the minimum wages for tailoring industry workers.

Minimum wages for garment workers were last revised in 2004. In 2005, the employers went to the court and stopped the wage revision

In 2012, the government formed an advisory committee and in October 2014, a government order announced new minimum wages revision for tailoring industry. Accordingly, the minimum wage for a cutter, the most skilled position, is Rs 8480 (US$ 127) while the helper, at the bottom of the skill pyramid, will receive Rs 7201 (US$ 107).

Although a low wage revision, employers still petitioned the court to cancel the government order. Garment workers’ unions also approached the court to contest the employers’ petition and to implement the wage revisions.

On 15 July, the Madras High Court ruled that the government’s order be upheld and stated that:
“minimum wages as notified shall be paid to the workers by the petitioners/management on and from the date of the notification as published in the Government Gazette, i.e. from December 2014.”

The court further directed the employers to pay the minimum wages along with the arrears within two months from the date of receipt of the court order, along with a 6 per cent interest from the date of notification till date of payment.

However, even after the court verdict, implementation of the new wages remains a major concern as large number of workers are not aware of the wage revision. Further, the Tamil Nadu government created a loophole when announcing a different set of very low minimum wages for the hosiery industry in January 2016, which will help employers to avoid paying higher wages.

Apoorva Kaiwar, IndustriALL Global Union South Asia regional secretary, says that:
“Most of the government workers are precarious workers employed on piece rate and weekly wages with no regular employment contract. As employers do not regularize the employment of precarious workers, they are forced to shift from one factory to other factories frequently. Trade union presence in the garment factories in Tamil Nadu is also very low as employers strongly resist the formation of unions.

“Together these factors pose challenges for workers to get statutory minimum wages and arrears. It is imperative that we organize strong trade unions among garment workers to ensure that the new provisions are implemented”.

The Garment and Fashion Workers Union (GFWU), which played a crucial role in representing workers, welcomed the court verdict and called for the implementation of the high court order in letter and spirit.

“Irrespective of the fabric they are working, all tailoring workers should be considered on par and minimum wages should be implemented equally for all workers."

Courtesy: Industryall

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