In August this year, over 2,000 sanitation workers from Central and North Chennai staged a peaceful protest against the Greater Chennai Corporation’s (GCC) decision to privatise waste management services in Zones 5 and 6. Their demonstration was met with force and allegations of police brutality, just one day before Independence Day.
Over the years, GCC has outsourced solid waste management to private firms in 13 out of its 15 zones. The latest was in June this year, which approved the handover of Zones 5 and 6 to Delhi MSW Solutions, part of the Ramky Group. This move has left long-serving sanitation workers in a state of uncertainty.
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Impact of privatisation of waste management on workers
Previously employed under the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM), these workers are now being offered only contractual positions with the private company, that too with a significant pay cut.
The DMK had made a poll promise to regularise the jobs of sanitary workers working for over a decade. However, the state government has made no attempts to address their concerns.
While officials claim privatisation will bring better benefits, many workers argue the opposite. Advocate Kannan of the Uzhaippor Urimai Iyakkam points out that regularisation, not privatisation, is key to ensuring job security and dignity of the workers and their future generations.
The move to privatisation has raised many such concerns. In Part 1 of a video on this issue, we have broken down how the privatisation of waste management will affect thousands of sanitary workers in Chennai.
For the workers, who are already marginalised because of caste and social stigma, privatisation brings more discrimination through pay cuts and loss of already precarious livelihoods.
But the story doesn’t end there. Privatisation also raises questions of accountability and public money. In Part 2, we will look at what this means for Chennai’s taxpayers.