Labour

If one makes an early morning tour of areas like Lingarajapuram, Chikka Banaswadi, Kullapa Circle, Papareddy Palya, Kurubarahalli, Rajagopal Nagar, Peenya and Dasarahalli, they are likely to see groups of workers carrying construction tools and lunch boxes waiting on the roads and side streets, their eyes eagerly scanning the road  for contractors who will hire them as daily wage labourers. These spaces where the workers congregate every morning are known as Labour Stands and are an ubiquitous sight in many Indian cities. Many such labour stands exist in Bengaluru, yet few outside the world of contractors know about them. How do…

Odisha has just added another first to its credit. While others are only talking about putting money in the hands of people, chief minister Naveen Pattnaik announced an Urban Wage Employment Initiative (UWEI) scheme to help the informal work force in the state’s 114 urban local bodies. The initiative envisages immediate execution of all labour intensive projects in the ULBs in the state, with an allocation of Rs 100 crore, including Rs 10 crore to the Bhubaneswar Municipal corporation, to be spent on wages of workers working on these projects during April to September. The state government’s Urban Development and…

Ever since the first national lockdown to fight the battle with Coronavirus was imposed, starting March 25, 2020, questions over labour and labouring have been discussed and deliberated upon with an intensity hardly ever witnessed before in modern India. The trigger for it has been the hapless situation of migrant labour, the working poor and daily wage earners, evident across the country. This is an especially unique historical moment, because culturally speaking, we have never really valued labour or given it the dignity it deserves, even if we pay lip service to the same. Yet, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought…

On an endless stretch of National Highway 58 (NH-58), a batch of over 200 migrant workers, arriving all the way from Ahmedabad are intercepted at the Rajasthan borders. The officials manning the borders, who are short-stocked on testing kits or thermal screening devices are insistent that the ‘returnees’ produce ‘Health Certificates’. The repeated claims of the migrants, including women and elderly, that they are natives of the state are insufficient to secure them safe passage back to their homes in South Rajasthan. Since the nation-wide lock down on March 24th, the reverse-migration of semi-skilled and unskilled workers ‘on foot’ --…

For the past year, as part of my Peak Urban research, I have been researching the emergence of digital money and Uber-like online transport booking services in the auto-rickshaw industry in Bengaluru. I have witnessed huge gaps in provision to services, particularly for these low-income self-employed drivers who are marginalised from regulated banking institutions and are forced to seek alternative financial arrangements at exorbitant costs. They provide important transportation services for the public, that are designed to supplement the bus and Metro systems. Yet these drivers are not financially supported in terms of infrastructure investment, salaries, health insurance or retirement pensions.…

[This article was co-authored by Rakesh Kumar Sinha. Rakesh holds a PGDCA from CMC, Delhi and a Certificate in Computing from IGNOU. He has worked as a research assistant in Policy and Planning Research Unit of Indian Statistical Institute.] On Sunday 08 December 2019, 43 people lost their lives in a tragic fire in a Delhi small-scale manufacturing hub. Most victims are young migrant labourers from states like Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.  It was reported that factories were located illegally on residential premises, and an electrical short circuit possibly caused the fire. At least five of the 43 victims were minors, with…

When the Government of India issued an advisory on August 3rd, urging tourists and non-Kashmiris to leave the state, thousands of labourers who work in Srinagar and other areas decided to return home. However, around 150 non-Kashmiri waste pickers and their families decided to stay put in Srinagar. The city had provided them a home and livelihood for years and they believed they would be safe, despite subsequent reports of non-Kashmiri truck drivers and traders being killed Most of these waste-pickers and their families have lived in Srinagar since the 1960s, but their numbers increased in the 1990s. “A majority…

A study by Toxics Link, a Delhi-based environmental research and advocacy non-profit identified 15 e-waste processing hotspots in Delhi operating with impunity without safeguards. These hotspots house over 5,000 illegal e-waste processing units directly and indirectly, employing over 50,000 people. The sheer scale of the violation of environmental norms highlights the failure of the system, especially of the E-waste (Management) Rules 2016. The study states that many authorised dismantlers and recyclers are selling waste to the informal sector, in complete contravention of the law. The CPCB website currently does not provide their list of authorized vendors as mandated by the…

The Garments and Textile Workers Union (GATWU) staged a protest on 12th September, to oppose the apathetic attitude of the government and the factory owners. The protest, held in front of the Labour Department office at Dairy Circle, highlighted the inordinate delay in the fixing of minimum wages in the garment industry. It also pointed to the discrimination towards garment workers by the minimum wages committee, which had recommended extremely low wages. The Karnataka garments industry employs 3.5-4 lakh workers, and 85 percent of the workforce is female. These workers manufacture textiles for international brands and export them, earning substantial…

This article is supported by SVP Cities of India Fellowship “I have aged parents to take care of, and two younger brothers to educate. That’s one of the reasons I am doing my MBA.” After completing 12th standard from a government school in Bongaigaon district, Assam, 23-year-old Merajul Hoque has come a long way, quite literally (around 2700 kms, in case you are wondering). An employee of the multinational security company G4S, he has been working as a security guard on deputation to a family in Bengaluru for over three years. While the term chowkidar has become popular for all the…