New Prime Minister, New Initiative
Pre-budget Meeting with Trade Unionists

On 23 June at around 5 pm, nine top trade union leaders of the country met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and discussed issues of importance to the working class of India. The meeting was one of the first such meetings held after the formation of the new United Progressive Alliance government a month ago. The Prime Minister informed the trade union leaders that he believed in talks and assured them that before deciding on any labour issue he would take the union leaders into confidence.

It was on 16 June that the trade union leaders received a letter from the Prime Minister’s office requesting them to attend a meeting with him on 23 June. Though the notice was short, the union leaders welcomed the initiative. For them, the initiative - the PM himself getting involved in labour issues – was a departure from the set process.

Gurudas Dasgupta (AITUC), W R Varada Rajan (CITU), Girish Awasthy (BMS), Umraomal Purohit (HMS), Sanjeeva Reddy (INTUC), S R Sengupta (UTUC), Krishna Chakraborty (UTUC-LS), Devrajan (TUCC) and Naren Sen (NFITU) met the Prime Ministers along with social activist Swami Agnivesh who represented the Bandhua Mukti Morcha.

Generation of employment and people-oriented development was the major demand of the trade unions. D L Sachdeva of AITUC said their representative Gurudas Dasgupta told the Prime Minister that in order to meet the challenges of mounting unemployment it was essential to embark on a programme of massive government investment targeted to augment agriculture production, building and expanding social infrastructure, improving irrigation facilities, developing small and medium scale industries, and setting up new power generation stations. According to him, AITUC strongly believes that people-oriented development measures will help in creating more and more opportunities for employment.

“The new Prime Minister recognizes the importance of working class,” says Sanjeeva Reddy, president of INTUC. “The Prime Minister has assured us that he will look into the Job Guarantee Programme (15-20 days of assured jobs in a month) for workers in the unorganised sector,” he adds. One of the major issues that INTUC highlighted

at the meeting was amendment of the Companies Act. The INTUC feels that in the present situation of competitive environment, the capital and labour should work in close cooperation. The workers should also be involved in the policy-making process of the establishment and as such the Company Law should be amended to reserve at least 25 per cent of the equity to be subscribed by the employees and officers. They should also be given representation on the Board of Directors.

“The request of the trade unions to give a visible push to the Common Minimum Programme in the budget was well received by the Prime Minister,” says Tapan Sen, Secretary of CITU. CITU in its representation strongly urged the Prime Minister that long-awaited legislative measures should be given utmost priority for ensuring that this basic principle is translated into action. Their major demands were for a Comprehensive Agricultural Workers Bill to guarantee minimum wages and to extend social protection to the vast multitude of agricultural labourers; the Unorganised Sector Workers Bill duly incorporating the unanimous inputs provided by all the central trade unions and a legislation to protect women workers from sexual harassment at workplaces as per the recommendations and guidelines issued by the Supreme Court as far back as in August 1997.

According to Girish Awasthy, deputy general secretary of BMS, the Prime Minister was cordial and friendly in his first meeting with the top trade union leaders. “The Prime Minister made it very clear that since the budget session is very near and there is only a short time to review the matters, it will be difficult for him to incorporate all the issues raised,” says Awasthy.

The entire spectrum of trade union movement has emphasized that the government should take effective steps to negate the pernicious impact of - and clear the impasse created by – the Supreme Court judgment on ban on strike by government employees. The Common Minimum Programme adopted by the new government has unambiguously stated that the rights and benefits earned by workers, including the right to strike according to law, will not be taken away or curtailed.

Minimum Wages: A Boon for the

Domestic Workers in Karnataka

The beginning of June this year has brought a surprise to the domestic workers in Karnataka. The state government decided to fix the minimum wages for the domestic workers in the state. It has come up with a notification, which ensures minimum wages for the domestic workers. According to the notification, a domestic worker who works for eight hours in a house is entitled to an amount between Rs 1,600 and Rs 1,800 per month. But if the members of the household where the work is done are more than four, the charges will go up to Rs 2,200. If she/he works more than eight hours, they have to be paid double the rate.

An estimated 100,000 people work as domestic labour in the Bangalore city. Many a time the workers are engaged in performing single chores like washing, sweeping or cleaning. A worker performing a single chore for 45 minutes will now have to be paid Rs 150 per month. “We are not completely satisfied with the order,” says Ruth Manorama, the Adviser to the Domestic Workers Union (Bangalore Gruha Karmikara Sangha). “But we are happy because at least a domestic worker is assured of a fixed wage. They were working for extremely poor wages,” she adds.

In 1987, the unions helping the cause of domestic workers in Karnataka had began their struggle demanding inclusion of domestic labour in the scheduled list of employment. According to the Minimum Wages Act, the government notifies minimm wages only workers in the scheduled sectors. Though the unions acheived their goal on 3 January 1992, to their dismay, ‘domestic work’ was arbitrarly removed from the schedule on 22 November 1993. ‘Domestic work’ reappeared in the schedule only in 2004. Karnataka is one of the first states in the country to fix wages for domestic workers. The unions were taken into confidence before fixing the minimum wages.

For the thousands of domestic workers in Karnataka, the order comes as a boon. But how far the rule will be implemented is a big question. It seems to be an uphill task for the Labour Department. Will its inspectors visit every household that employs domestic workers? The officials of the Labour Department are positive. They feel that the labour inspectors and senior level inspectors can handle the job.

“We are demanding enumeration of the domestic workers,” says Ruth Manorama. “But more than that what is required is wide publicity for the notification,” she says. According to her, it should be publicised in both the print and visual media so that the employers will be aware of the order.

Majority of the domestic workers are illiterate and most of them are not members of any union. Who will take the responsibility of making them aware of such a beneficial order? In such a situation, one has to wait and see how successful will be the implementation of this order.

World Day Against Child Labour: ILO Launches Report on Plight of Domestic Child Workers

This year, 12 June marked the 3rd World Day Against Child Labour. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) launched the World Day in 2002 to focus world attention on the urgent need to eradicate child labour. In India, as a means of raising the visibility of the problems related to child labour and highlighting the global movement to eliminate child labour and its worst forms, various child rights organisations and groups observed the World Day against Child Labour.

The day was observed to remember the children and to commemorate those who work to bring about a world without child labour. Child labour is a complex problem that requires comprehensive solutions. It requires personal commitment, moral indignation, community determination and national action. The observance of the day will be fruitful and successful only if the employers, governments, workers’ groups, and civil society decides to renew their mandates to make it a reality, where the parents work and children go to school.

The ILO observed the third World Day Against Child Labour with the release of a report “Helping Hands or Shackled Lives? Understanding child domestic labour and responses to it”. Prepared by the ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour. The report examines in detail the plight of children working in sometimes hazardous forms of domestic labour.

Children in domestic labour are usually “invisible” in their communities, toiling for long hours with little or no pay, frequently abused, and regularly deprived of the chance to play or go to school. According to the report child domestic labour is a widespread and growing global phenomenon that traps as many as ten million children or more – mostly girls – in hidden forms of exploitation, often involving abuse, health risks and violence.

The report says all domestic child labourers, without exception, are at risk because of the very nature of child domestic labour, which is not only widely accepted but often considered a “better” alternative for children from poor families.

“They are in a workplace – even if that workplace is someone else’s home – hidden from public view and labour inspection. The children are consequently at risk not only of exploitation but also of abuse and violence,” says Dr June Kane, the author of the report. “It is vital that child domestic labour, so often neglected because the exploitation and abuse take place behind closed doors, receives attention.”

The report also says that more girls under 16 work in domestic service than in any other category of labour. In countries like Brazil, Guatemala and Costa Rica, more than 90 per cent of children working in domestic service are girls.

Not all child domestic workers end up without a future, the report says. ILO experience in Asia, Central and South America and Africa shows that with strong social and national institutions, and income or credit options for the parents, children under the minimum working age can be successfully removed from domestic labour.

On 10 June 2004, about 50 garment and sportswear workers from NOIDA, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Tirupur, Mumbai and Delhi along with several leaders of trade unions were forcibly detained by the police in the national capital. The arrests happened when they were en route to the Humayun’s Tomb where they were expected to assemble for a peaceful demonstration. At the Humayun’s Tomb, a historical monument in New Delhi, Olympics Torch runners were going to be greeted with a cultural programme organised by the Delhi government.

About 150 workers started moving in a convoy from BTR Bhawan, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg at 2.15 pm. However, mid-way police stopped their vehicles from proceeding to the venue. They then started to march towards the venue but were arrested at 3.15 pm from the Bhartiya Vidya Bhawan on the Kasturba Gandhi Marg. Among those arrested were Hind Mazdoor Sabha secretary R A Mital, AITUC secretary D L Sachdev and Labour File Special Correspondent Sindhu Menon.

They were kept at the Parliament Street Police Station till the Olympic Torch reached the ‘safe hands’ of the corporate sponsors and were released only after 9.30 pm. Incidentally, the Olympics Torch relay in India was taken over completely by Coca Cola and Samsung, the official sponsors of the event. Torchbearers were decided entirely by them.

The workers were making use of the Olympics Torch rally to highlight the extreme exploitative situations in which they are placed. The repressive reaction from the State came despite the workers declaring at various forums that the campaign did not intend a protest or demonstration against the Olympics Torch rally, which they held in high esteem.

Workers and Trade Unions at Humayun’s Tomb

Meanwhile, some workers and trade union leaders managed to escape arrest and reached the Humayun’s Tomb. But they were prohibited from entering the premises and were forcibly put behind a police barricade. This was done despite repeated explainations to police officials that their demonstration was a peaceful one without involving any slogan shouting and they would only distribute handouts. Among them were P K Ganguly and Indrani Mazumdar, CITU, Rajiv Dimri, AICCTU, P K Shahi, AIFTU, A Aloysius, SAVE and Pallavi Mansingh and J John, CEC.

National Meeting

Earlier in the day, a national meeting held at the BTR Bhawan, the CITU headquarters, it was decided to take a rally carrying a model of the Olympics Torch from Tirupur, Tamil Nadu on 19 July and to reach New Delhi on 31 July. The rally will pass through the key centers of export garment production in India— Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Surat, Kolkata and Ludhiana.

The meeting was addressed by CITU president M K Pandhe, CITU secretary P K Ganguly, HMS secretary R A Mital, AITUC secretary D L Sachdev, AICCTU secretary Rajiv Dimri, NTUI’s Gautam Modi, A Aloysius, Director, SAVE and J John, Executive Director, CEC.

Play Fair at the Olympics: India Campaign

In the run-up to the Athens Olympics 2004, the Play Fair at the Olympics: India Campaign aims to bring together the various stakeholders working to improve the conditions of workers in the garment and sportswear industry, on one platform. It wants to raise a societal consciousness on workers’ rights in the garment and sportswear industry in India. The campaign also intends to sensitise employers on the need to have fair labour standards and ensure that the rights of the workers are protected.

Play Fair at the Olympics: India Campaign is jointly organised by central trade unions AITUC, CITU, HMS, INTUC, UTUC, AICCTU and NTUI and the organisations working on labour issues like CEC and SAVE. It is a campaign against the exploitation of workers in the garments and sportswear industry. It envisions defending the rights of workers—their right to organise, living wages, social security, legal work hours and safe working conditions.

The campaign is a part of the global-level Play Fair at the Olympics campaign, launched by Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), Oxfam International (OI) and Global Unions, in the context of the Athens Olympics 2004. It brings together trade unions and labour rights organisations from all over the world. The Asian campaign has identified the empowerment of workers as the most important and effective tool in improving working conditions and wage levels in the garment industry in Asia. The focus is on maximisation of workers’ involve-ment to push multinational buyers and retailers and manufacturers to improve working conditions in the garment and sportswear industry in Asia.

Not a Campaign Against Olympics

The organisers of the campaign insist that it is not a campaign against the Olympic Games.They have warned that the campaign should not be used either by the buyers or any other agency to propose or advocate boycott of goods. Rather, they say the aim is to encourage preference for observance of labour standards, and a consistent and long-term collaboration among various stakeholders.

The annual conference of the International Labour Organization (ILO), 1-17 June, Geneva has adopted a new plan designed to provide a fair deal for migrant workers. After two weeks of debate, the Conference Committee on Migrant Workers which comprises government, worker and employer delegates from 119 member-states reached a consensus on 16 June on the plan of action. The plan calls for the development of a non-binding multilateral framework for a rights-based approach to labour migration and the establishment of an ILO dialogue on migration in partnership with international and multilateral organisations. It is estimated that there are around 25 million migrant workers in Asian countries - 29 per cent of the global total of the 86-million migrant labour.

The framework will comprise international guidelines on such aspects as:

Promoting managed migration for employment purposes, including agreements between host countries and countries of origin addressing different aspects of migration; such as expanding avenues for regular migration, increasing portability of social security entitlements, promoting investments from remittances and promoting integration and social inclusion.

v      Promoting decent work for migrant workers.

v      Licensing and supervision of recruitment and contracting agencies for migrant workers in accordance with ILO conventions and recommendations, with the provision of clear and enforceable contracts by those agencies.

v      Preventing abusive practices, migrant smuggling and trafficking in persons, protecting their human rights and preventing and combating irregular labour migration.

v      Addressing the specific risks for all migrant workers, men and women, in certain occupations and sectors with particular emphasis on dirty, demeaning and dangerous jobs, and on women in domestic service and the informal economy.

v      Improving labour inspection and creation of channels for migrant workers to lodge complaints and seek remedy without intimidation.

v      Promoting measures to ensure that all migrant workers benefit from the provisions of all relevant international labour standards.

v      Introducing measures to ensure that all migrant workers are covered by national labour legislation and applicable social laws.

v      Implementing policies to encourage return migration, reintegration into the country of origin and transfer of capital and technology by migrants.

The plan of action adopted by the ILO’s 92nd International Labour Conference is designed to ensure that migrant workers are covered by the provisions of international labour standards, while benefiting from applicable national labour and social laws.