Given the vast size of the unorganised sector in India, to showcase even a sample of the working and living conditions of workers and their families is a monumental task. And this is precisely what an International Labour Organisation publication titled ‘The other India at Work: Job Quality in Micro and Small Enterprise Clusters’ has attempted to do. Though confined to ten manufacturing and artisan clusters based in eleven locations in Northern India, the report throws some light on the possible threats faced by sections of the artisan and manufacturing community from globalisation and economic liberalisation. There seems to be no alternative to improving conditions of work and that of productivity in order to meet the challenges of globalisation, concur the authors of the study.

What makes the study more interesting is the vignettes of the working conditions; of the workers and their work. Given the threat of competitive pressures, the study suggests coping mechanisms to deal with globalisation at the local level. However, it refrains from doing any serious undertaking of the impact of unionisation of the workers on their working conditions. While pushing for the use of better technology by the workshop owners as that would necessarily add to value addition and by corollary, fetch them a better price, the question to be asked is whether all this would push up the wage levels as well of the ordinary artisan and worker. The answer is probably in the negative as price competitiveness steps in resulting in reduced wages, a euphemism for cost-cutting. Yet another aspect that emerges from the study is that while employers are still able to form associations, no such form of organisation is seen among the workers. The employer-employee relationship is nebulous as most of the latter are recruited through contractors. The relations of production can be said to be characteristic of a pre-capitalistic and semi-feudal nature given the backwardness of the technology, the interdependence and yet relative independence of the employer and the almost complete absence of the state despite the statutory, though nominal presence of labour laws.

Pictorially represented, the workers shown breaking stones or welding or even pouring hot molten metal into a mould, present a very sorry picture minus any protective gear. While much of this may not be new in the Indian context, it is also not surprising that labour continues to be the least valued in the entire production process. This devaluation has only increased. One such manifestation was the brutal attack on workers of the Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India Limited in Gurgaon, Haryana. The workers were set upon by none other than the state police acting in connivance with the HMSI management. There should no doubt that be it the sprawling Gurgaon skyline dotted with shiny offices of MNCs or the backlanes of Uttar Pradesh where artisans toil day and night, the State’s attitude to labour remains very much the same.

The ILO study is more about job quality than the ability of the workers to negotiate for better conditions and better wages. It does not therefore go beyond the descriptions and that is perhaps its limitation. Neither does it explore what the government agencies can do or are doing in the area of ensuring better working conditions and wages. While the study covers engineering shops in Ghaziabad, metal work in Hazaribagh (Jharkhand), hand block printing in Jaipur, handlooms in Kullu, ceramic in Khurja, chikan work in Lucknow, carpet weaving in Mirzapur, brassware in Moradabad, nuts and bolts in Rohtak, bone and hoof products in Saraitareen (Uttar Pradesh), it does not even mention the bangle units in Firozabad where a successful struggle for unionising the workers has been waged. The outcome of this struggle was that the eight-hour working day norm was restored – earlier it was 12 to 14 hours – and similarly the guarantee of minimum wages assured to the workers. There is no doubt that similar exploitative conditions thrive in the carpet industry of Mirzapur where the final product is sold for thousands of rupees and even exported by the big exporters who are fairly organised. The small manufacturers do Pheri or cart their products on a handcart in neighbouring cities.    

 “The Other India at Work” gives the much-needed glimpse of the working and living conditions of work in the manufacturing and artisan clusters in Northern India as these representations can very well apply to the rest of the country as well What is missing is a historical analysis of the clusters studied which could have thrown some light on the situation, say, ten or fifteen years ago. Many of the clusters were found part of the larger supply chain of larger enterprises. It was therefore all the more needed to study the differential benefits of such work to first the owners of the large chains who depend on these clusters for supply of finished goods and second, how the workers themselves have benefited in the new economic climate. It is not for anything that the study concludes that eventually the role of the government in setting the tone of overall policy, including the regulatory environment is an important one.

The study is generally informative as it throws light on the size of the industry. The informal sector numbering around 30 crore is said to produce nearly 40 per cent of industrial products and contribute nearly 45 per cent of the national income. Entire families are involved in work, often denying the right to education for the young ones. Those in this sector also do agricultural work in the season and non-agricultural work as well. They are artisans, head-loaders, construction workers, brick kiln and quarry workers, and glassware or brassware workers. And most of them learn on the job in the absence of any training or opportunities of education. They toil the year around with no regular employment and are not entitled to any social security benefits.

The study calls them the "ultimate entrepreneurs" for their ability to?sustain a livelihood with very little capital. But the ILO study also admits that the norms of "decent work" elude these workers. The study argues that while the advantage of?globalisation may have been taken by the new manufacturing and service clusters like that of knitwear in Tiruppur or automotive components in Delhi and Chennai, IT and back office work in Bangalore and Gurgaon, the bulk of the informal sector languishes in abysmal working conditions. Here business relationships do not "necessarily provide fair share of return based on value addition." The subcontracting nature of most of the work and the lack of an "employer-employee" relationship denies the worker the right to collective bargaining. But it is possible that more than globalisation directly affecting these entrepreneurs, it is the absence of state intervention, either in terms of guaranteeing labour its due or in terms of promoting the actual artisans and producers that has resulted in the sorry state of affairs. The advantages of globalisation were lapped up by those who could do so, including the big exporters and the big producers. The lack of state intervention, rather than its withdrawal, encouraged monopolies in every sphere including the informal sector leaving the worker in the lurch. The study shows that the manufacturing units themselves have remained unchanged over the centuries, in terms of bettering the work environment or better wages to the workers, despite their growing contribution to exports and the international supply chain. However whatever little impact technology may have had on the lives of the workers – for instance, as is well known, the use of machines to make carpets rather than the traditional role of hand weaving, has had an adverse effect on the artisan community in Mirzapur – does not get highlighted in the report. Technology by itself may not ameliorate the conditions of workers, especially if it is designed to replace the work force. One dimension that emerges in the report is large scale of home based work done by women and children. The gender division of labour is such that women are not seen on the factory floor, but instead are doing work in household units along with their children. Home-based work is considered as more productive as it paves the way for the term "flexible work.”  Here the report could have delved a little more on the hours spent at work; the real wages got the end of the month and the work experience itself. Much of the work is conducted in ill-lit, ill-ventilated surroundings where the boundaries between the work place and the hearth get blurred.

What the ILO report does not explore is the experience or workers who are organised viz. a viz. those who are not. While the report says that there seemed to be an ignorance of occupational safety measures, it may be that where workers are organised or have a union, they may be better aware of the health hazards involved in their work. Since, none of the units or clusters covered in the study had a workers’ union, a comparative understanding cannot be arrived at.

However, there is a lot of information on the work conditions including duration of work. Workers were expected to put in more than 40 hours of work a week with no paid holidays. (Under the Factories Act, for every 20 days of work, a worker is entitled to one day of paid leave. Over 80 per cent of the workers surveyed had no paid or annual leave.) Though night work was not compulsory, it was found that erratic power supplies often resulted in workers working at all odd hours. Very few workers had access to any kind of protective gear. Potential hazards were found in the matter of ventilation, storage of materials, electrical wiring, storage and use of gas, hazardous chemicals, protective gear and disposal of waste. While employers seemed to be aware of the need for improvement in the work area, the workers did not. Almost a third of the workers suffered injuries at work and there was no ready mechanism at the workplace treat the injuries. Most of the work-related health problems related to poor posture apart from issues like respiration and vision. Apart from no health information that was provided, the majority of employees interviewed in the study said that there was no provision for first aid kits at the workplace. In short, the report found that the working environment, however poor, was taken for granted by most workers and employers.

The study could also have brought out the overall income in these clusters, in terms of output and profit and compare that with what the workers received. The fact that many of the clusters have been part of a larger supply chain involving larger enterprises, it can be surmised that these units are profit-making enterprises, the only difference being, the profits do not percolate down to the actual producer.