workers rights

The termination of 80 workers of India’s first Public Sector Undertaking (PSU), M/s Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) Limited in Bengaluru on December 21st, 2021 is the latest instance of the long history of labour abuse at ITI. Their struggle ever since for fair treatment and wages reached its 100th day on March 10th. Though the workers had put in between 3 to 35 years at the ITI, they were all still designated as “contract workers”. In recent times, as with all PSUs, ITI’s contract workers have been increasingly vulnerable to being “casualised”---that is transformed from being employed chiefly on permanent…

How has Bengaluru city's sweeping transformation over the last 30 years impacted its street-based sex workers? Bengaluru, which has no specific red light area, has hosted a vast landscape for street-based sex work – a category of informal labour that is not strictly illegal, but is considered undesirable and in urgent need of rescue and rehabilitation. However, in the last three decades, the meaning of ‘public space’ has undergone a dramatic change in Bengaluru, alongside the definition of who ought to legitimately constitute the ‘public’ or 'desirable worker'. Consequently, an entire ecology around street-based sex work has slowly disintegrated, pushing…

To understand and document the impact of COVID on Bengaluru's crematoria and burial ground workers, two members and a volunteer from the All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), Karnataka, visited 26 crematoriums/burial grounds between May 4 and 8, 2021 and interviewed workers. Based on these interviews and other publicly available information including circulars issued by the government regarding COVID related deaths and burials/cremations and visits to each facility, they have brought out a report titled ‘Dignity Disposed’. Here is an overview of their findings: Bengaluru has 42 crematoriums and 58 burial grounds according to newspaper reports. Additionally, there are temporary…

“We are requesting the government to come up with a law or policy like that passed in California last year (for the protection of gig workers),” said Tanveer Pasha, representative of the Ola-Uber drivers’ association, in a panel discussion titled ‘Formalising the Gig Economy’, held on June 8. Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and Citizen Matters, in collaboration with the Bangalore International Centre (BIC), had organised the panel discussion as part of Bengaluru Solutions Series, a public engagement series dedicated to urban issues. This was the sixth installment of the series. The discussion was centred around legal protections for gig…

The Gig Economy is characterised by economic activity based on short-term or temporary labour contracts - as opposed to permanent employment - typically in the service sector. The rise of app-based companies has created a new economic model which deems workers to be independent contractors, rather than employees. While this allows for low barriers for entry and exit to the field, it exempts gig workers from protections conferred by employment laws including minimum wages, overtime and other benefits. The COVID-19 crisis, in particular, has brought into sharp focus the precarious conditions gig workers are subject to. Platform workers engaged in…

Why do Shramik trains arranged after a 60-day long wait by workers have to be so carefully mismanaged? How do they end up taking extra-long routes? And why are passengers given such meagre amounts of water and food? Is this what ‘shramiks’ should get after spending days trying to satisfy all procedures, whims and fancies of the concerned departments and officials?  Why does everything to do with workers have to be a planned nightmare?  Let me share snippets from the journey of a worker from Bengaluru to Jampani village in Jharkhand, which led me to ask these questions.  The journey…

Women workers will be among those worst-affected by the Karnataka government’s notification that allows factories to increase work hours to 10 per day, or 60 per week. In a survey conducted jointly by us at the Alternative Law  Forum and the Garments Mahila Karmikara Munnade between May 16 and 18, 65% of workers said they won't and can't work for longer hours. Given that an overwhelming segment of the workforce in garment industries are women, extending their work hours will likely result in thousands of women dropping out of the workforce or being asked to leave if they can't work…

Karnataka government and industry bodies have been speaking of the need to relax labour laws in the context of COVID-19 pandemic. We, at AICCTU (All India Central Council of Trade Unions), believe that in the crisis caused by the pandemic, we must strengthen labour laws, not weaken them. We submitted a memorandum to the state government in this regard on May 15. We hope that the government will consider our demands seriously and initiate action quickly. Government must strengthen labour laws to fight hunger and poverty, to build a secure society.Government must discuss with all trade unions on how labour…

Labour colonies are spread across the city in the most obscure places - often in dilapidated buildings and makeshift rooms hidden from public view. There are usually 12-20 workers in a 10x10 ft room, sometimes smaller. These rooms are poorly ventilated and have no storage facilities. Workers are also expected to cook in these rooms. They share common bathrooms and toilets.  Labour colonies are of three kinds:  Old multi-storey dilapidated buildings, separated by tin sheets which can house 250-300 workers, with separate toilets and bathrooms located usually on the terrace. Tin Sheet colonies, with open tanks in common bathing areas,…

On 8 November, some apartment associations around Cubbon Park had domestic workers in their apartments profiled. Photographs, fingerprints and detailed information of the workers were recorded by a private agency. The profiling was organised by Cubbon Park police station. Domestic workers Protest Pic: Navya P K The private agency Hamari Suraksha in its website says that it is ‘rooting out domestic terror' through this procedure. This is supposed to prevent crimes committed by domestic workers and help the police track workers when there is a crime. We are not criminals The event sparked off a protest on 10 November by…