Report of Rath Committee

The committee was formed with the mandate to "to enquire into written complaints from the workers engaged by the contractors of the institute who are executing the projects as on the date (i.e. as on October 2007)".

You can access the full report here. Here are some of our comments on the same:

Comments on the functioning :

• • Committee refused to acknowledge the complaint as collective complaint. Consequently, only those could raise their voice were counted. It did not strike them that if 27 workers complaint against same contractor and same worksite, it demands a deeper investigation.

  • The committee selectively refused to acknowledge oral evidences (see comments on the report later).

  • It even refused to pay any weightage to absence of documentation as is required by law viz-a-viz attendance, payment etc. something which was reiterated as mandatory by an institute office order only some time back.

  • Its report goes on to specify exactly who needs to be paid what based on its own supposed norms completely regardless of any legalities or precedence -- categorizing workers from class A (deserving more than the skilled rate) to class C (deserving only the semi-skilled rate). Legality of classifying different workers doing same job for determining the minimum wages (this is the sustenance wage and not a bonus!) is not even considered.

  • The committee came up with explicit figures as to each workers dues, and has conveniently forgotten completely how they were arrived at -- the responses to the RTIs say so.

Comments on the report :

• • "Discussions and investigations revealed that the contractor in making payments to workers adopted no rational norms."

  • "Many of the workers were not presented at the MWMC office to receive their wages. "

    • This was a systematic way to underpay, as minimum wage need be given to fewer workers. It is then collected back and redistributed to all. This had been well documented by Minimum Wage Monitoring Committee and others. See for example this document.

  • "All such workers were paid at the work-site by contractor's representative".

    • The Minimum Wage Monitoring committee got an office order to have all the wages paid in front of its volunteers (who in turn manned the office six days a week to avoid any difficulties) for precisely this excuse by every contractor -- that we paid when you were not looking. This was the genesis of “taking back of wages” phenomenon.

    • Note that it is also legally required to have a representative of the principal employer when payments are made.

    • The claim of payment at worksite is accepted only on oral evidence by the contractor.

  • "The contractor submitted that he has withheld some money from the wages of these workers to ensure completion of work on time."

    • Here it accepts contractor’s reasoning of underpayment without documentation, even though “taking back of wages” required a documentary proof.

    • This is also against legal requirements.

  • "The two cases of watchmen are different … watchmen, however, were informally helping out in the work of M/s Gupta Enterprise. They were neither presented nor paid in the MWMC office. "

    • What is this “informal helping”? A charity daily wagers were up to?

  • "No documentary evidence is available regarding partial recovery of wages from the workers. "

    • This seems to be the only reasoning on which giving clean chit to the contractor hinges on.

  • "In the absence of any documentary evidence of partial recovery of paid wages … and also his willingness to settle the outstanding dues, the Committee recommends the contractor to settle the outstanding wages to the workers amicably … "

    • Exactly what documentary evidence of a coercive action is expected here? What exactly is underpayment of wages for a daily wage worker if not sugar-coated in “outstanding dues”?

    • Note that the amount committee recommended continued to be much less than what was quoted by workers as dues.

  • "The committee does not find any validity in the claims of the watchmen. However, on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, the committee recommends that both the watchmen be paid as per the recommendations ... "

    • Questions of rights are thus turned into charity.