Migrant workers: Labour without liberty

On a scorching summer afternoon in May, Durgamma lays cement blocks on a street in Bengaluru. The COVID-19 lockdown restrictions have been eased and her employer, a contractor for the city corporation’s road works, rushed to resume the beautification project — white topping of roads —  that had been stalled due to the 40-day lockdown.

Hailing from a parched village in Raichur, about 400km north of Bengaluru, Durgamma and her two sons had moved to the city in 2017 hoping to make enough money to repay their debts incurred on their farm and return within two years. But with the meagre income — Durgamma earns ₹300 a day while her sons get ₹450 — they still had a long way to go to end their miseries.

And then the pandemic struck and the lockdown dealt a heavy blow. With no money left to fend for themselves, she borrowed ₹15,000 from the contractor as advance.

Going against the government’s guidelines, the contractor not only denied them salaries for the lockdown period, but also made them work to compensate for the loan.

The labour department has issued a circular directing the private sector employers to abstain from layoffs or unpaid leaves during this countrywide lockdown.

Employees would be paid wages on the due date without any deduction during this period.@BSYBJP @mani1972ias pic.twitter.com/CubRs6wzTu

— Shivaram Hebbar (@ShivaramHebbar) April 13, 2020

With their daily expenses, she believes it would take at least 45 days for them to repay the loan. For now, Durgamma is bound to her work and can’t think of going home.

State failure causes chaos

Thousands of migrant workers in cities across the country, hailing from different home states, have had to face a similar and grim situation. With the COVID-19 lockdown curtailing their income possibilities, and no financial assistance given by states, a large number of them, who chose to stay back instead of walking like thousands of others, had to depend on food supplies and rations provided by volunteer groups.

Even the migrants who were engaged in state and central government projects were not paid wages in March (before lockdown). Many were at the mercy of contractors, who are the in-between employers of these workers and had even confined some to their worksites, forcing them to resume work, throwing caution and social distancing norms to the wind.

Workers had resorted to vandalism and even took construction engineers as hostages demanding full wages from the sub-contractors of Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation (BMRCL) and its joint venture firm URC Construction, and asked for facilitation of travel home.

Recognising their value to key sectors such as the real estate and construction, manufacturing, garment and public works, some state governments had initially tried to discourage them from going back home.

According to Karnataka State Construction Workers Central Union (KSCWCU), nearly 12-15 lakh people were engaged in construction works in the state. With migrant workers from other states desperately wanting to go home fearing further lockdown, the Ministry of Home Affairs gave permission to operate inter-state trains with certain conditions.

Karnataka, which opened up registration for migrant workers to travel from one state to another, witnessed 2.14 lakh registrations in a span of four days. However, only about 16 special Shramik Express trains were run with one-tenth capacity of the total demand. The state would need at least another 160 more trains to take back these migrant workers back to their home state.

Early on in the lockdown, thousands had crowded at Mumbai’s Bandra railway station on rumours that trains were being arranged to take them back home. And before that, just after the lockdown was announced, thousands had gathered in Delhi and Mumbai’s train stations and bus termini to go home.

Karnataka seems to have woken up to the plight late as thousands of migrant workers from states such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Jharkhand thronged Bengaluru’s bus and railway stations in early May, hoping to get back home.

Politicians please industries, ignore workers

While in Karnataka, internal migrants were charged exorbitant fares on state buses, the Tamil Nadu government was unsure of sending them back. After backlash from civil society groups and media, Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa on May 4 announced free bus rides for a week to different locations within the state. However, many workers continued to be charged for their travel. Some were even looking to borrow money to pay the bus ticket fares.

After meeting members of real estate body Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association of India (CREDAI), the CM had suddenly cancelled the Shramik Express trains from Karnataka which were due on the first few days of May.

Tejasvi Surya, Bengaluru South MP, defended the move, saying it would help migrant labourers, who came to the city with hopes of a better life. “It would help them ‘restart their dreams’ and will kick start economic activities,” he tweeted.

But this created a panic among the workers and many decided to walk 1,500-2,000 kilometres home.

Two workers engaged in the marble industry for the last four months left the city on May 7 for Udaipur in Rajasthan — around 1,650 km.

“The factory we worked for paid us until March. We have some money in our hands and hope to get help on the way and reach home. We do not want to struggle in this city for food and shelter,” Mangi Lal from Rajasthan said.

Labour laws don’t help

The All India Central Council of Trade Unions even filed a case in the Karnataka HC against the state for cancelling the trains and not looking into the complaints of migrant workers.

Some trade unions described the construction sites where the workers were confined as nothing but “bonded labour camps” with companies having a strict vigil on their activities.

Complaints started pouring in across the state about the poor condition of migrant workers and it put pressure on the labour department to act to protect the interest of the workers.

The then-labour secretary P Manivannan, who encouraged workers to register complaints against employers over delayed payment, non-payment of wages, and retrenchment, and even issued notices to companies, was soon shunted out by the state government, owing to pressure from industry lobbies.

BC Prabhakar, president, Karnataka Employers’ Association argued that the labour secretary “tried to protect workers and ignored employers even though we generated employment and created wealth for the state”.

Now, the same industries want relaxation on labour laws. They are asking CM Yediyurappa to follow his BJP counterparts — Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath and Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan — to amend labour laws to boost industrial activities.

Chouhan earlier this month announced several reforms for industries by amending labour laws, which he claimed will boost industrial activities, increase job opportunities, encourage fresh investments. In MP, factory owners will now be able to extend shifts from the maximum 8 hours as per their convenience to increase production.

Besides, under the Contract Labour Act, contractors who were required to register with the government if they employed 20 labourers or more, can now escape the law as the condition has been relaxed to more than 50 labourers.

The Karnataka government is likely to amend the Factories Act, Industrial Disputes Act, and Contract Labour Act among others to appease the industries.

Most of the migrant workers are unskilled and are vulnerable to exploitation by sub-contractors. Amending the laws to favour industries will further weaken their socio-economic conditions.

 

T Rajendra Prasad, professor and chairman, Department of Economics at Bangalore University, says now is the time migrant workers need support in terms of policy intervention and support. “Their food, health, political security should be given the top most priority,” he says.

Clifton D’ Rozario, a lawyer and national secretary, AICCTU, says the decision of states to amend labour laws will be a body blow to the working class.

He says much of these amendments and relaxation of laws, taking the ordinance route, are illegal and unconstitutional. “The BJP ruled states are determined to take advantage of the pandemic to push the working class to the situation of rightlessness,” Rozario says.

“By dismantling the labour laws, they are legalising forced labour.”

Ranjan Garu, a worker from West Bengal, who was confined to a construction site after the train services were cancelled, said, “We have no work. No proper food to eat. We lived in crammed sheds. With nothing else to do, why cannot the government let us go home?”

Garu’s family members back home are dependent on farming and since it is the harvest season, he can easily find job as a farm labourer.

“If we leave the workplace now, we cannot come back for at least four months. So we will try to adjust with what we have back in the village,” Garu says.

For Durgamma, the thought of going back to her home gives her the shivers. She has to now not only repay the loans borrowed in the village, but also settle the advances taken to survive during the lockdown.

“In the village, the money lenders charge compound interests. So the debts keep mounting. Even if I wish to get back to the village, I cannot,” Durgamma says. “It would take at least four months for us as we also have to save money to travel back home.”

(This is part of a series on Migrant Workers)