construction workers

Gopal, treasurer of the Karnataka State Construction Workers’ Union shares the problems faced by daily wagers during lockdown. RJ Asha from Radio Active 90.4 MHz speaks to Gopal, treasurer of the Karnataka State Construction Workers’ Union, about the many problems that daily wage labourers are facing during lockdown and the efforts to ease their difficulties. Gopal says they are managing to keep the Union’s Yeshwanthpur branch running by pitching in with their own money. The Union is trying its best to address the workers’ demands which the  government has done nothing to address. For now, the Union is helping them…

In the concluding part of this two-part series, we look at what prevented builders and the government from rushing to the aid of construction labourers during the lockdown. In Part 1 'Why Bhuvilal Mahato stayed back in Bengaluru' we saw how migrant workers who were looked after by their employers, did not feel the need to leave the city. For migrant workers in Bengaluru, the promise of deliverance after a traumatic locked down lasted briefly. No sooner did Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa announce shramik special trains to ferry them back to their States, the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’…

Kaveri (name changed), hails from a remote village in Raichur district. It has been two years since she shifted to Bengaluru and started working in a construction site. Her employer would pay her Rs 6,000 a month in two instalments. The money she earned added up to the family income and was used mostly to look after her three girl children, whom she sees as a ray of hope. She admitted all her girls to a private school back home with an intention to provide them good education. But last two months have been considerably tough for Kaveri. She has…

A woman sits with her ten-month-old baby. It's lunch time. Even as the hot afternoon sun beats down on her face, she quickly covers the baby with her veil protecting him from the sun. A huge apartment complex is under construction. There are over 12 workers there, not to mention two toddlers of around two years running behind their mother. She has just finished eating and resuming her work. She shouts at them to stop yelling. They don't.Two youngsters aged 16-17 lose their grip over the cement bag they are carrying and it rips apart. There are two more couples,…

Frail women carrying bricks or sand on their head and walking in the heat, sometimes with a small kid tagging along. Men in dusty, faded clothes with dry, rough hands smearing cement on the well-laid bricks or sprinkling water on a building that has just been cemented. This is a pretty common sight in a city like Bangalore that is ever-growing, ever-expanding and constantly in the process of being built or rebuilt. Building construction workers are growing in numbers every day, with constructions going on in any given road at any point in time. Labourers at work in the construction…