Citizens' Forum Letter to Director on various issues, particularly grievance redressal mechanism

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From: Citizens' Forum

To: Prof. Manna, Director, IITK

CC: Chairman, BOG; DORA, IITK; Chairman, FF

Subject: RE: further to your email reply

Date: Wed, 22 May 2013 01:05:25 +0000

Dear Prof. Manna,

Thanks for your reply. We are pleased to read your declaration and applaud your commitment to unequivocal condemnation of any corrupt practices of contractors or any other related players and Institute’s determination to eliminate the abuse. You have mentioned your commitment to justice and discipline, we are delighted to read this and commend you as such.

We understand your difficulty about time constraints and are willing to cooperate in terms of patience. However as we all know that by defining deadline or time framework for goals helps us all work in a direction to achieve them in time. It may therefore be desirable to engage in defining such deadlines vis a vis worker issues. For example the following may be a starting list:

-          New (IIT wide) universal ID cards

-          Procedure for addressing grievances of workers

-          Clear contract terms for contractors vis a vis labour issues, workers’ rights. Minimum wage, EPF, ESI, Safety etc. and a proviso for cancellation or punishment of those who defy those terms

-          Protocol for handling the violations by current contractors

-          Addressing past EPF and arbitrary firing issues

-          Work place safety plan with procedures and mechanisms and timeline for implementation and consequences those not respecting the rules

-          Etc.

There has been an entrenched tendency at our institute to believe and repeat ‘by and large, everything is fine’ and get comfortable. This is naive and tantamount to putting blinkers on our eyes. Everyone knows that it is not true. This is what has outraged so many alumni and IITK community. This is what has motivated us to work extensively to understand the situation thru RTI’s and other sources, learn about laws and regulations and compile reports. The reports on EPF mismanagement, Safety at work place, Arbitrary firing etc. are some examples. The Open house, an initiative of Faculty Forum has also shown that IITK community is very concerned about this issue. All this has illustrated numerous times that ‘everything is not fine’ and to achieve any just solution there needs to be a collective responsibility and community participation; in other words all stakeholders including workers.

A few weeks ago we had sent you a report of EPF mismanagement where a few cases had been highlighted. We believe that not only past cases be settled but also there should be a thorough audit of all contractors working at IITK to determine as to who are engaging in the abusive practice of EPF mismanagement.

It may be somewhat regressive on the part of the Institute to believe that its primary purpose is to protect itself against litigation. First of all, to believe that workers may litigate against the Institute is pure fantasy since they neither have the knowhow nor the resources. Given the ground realities in terms of police and courts and the entrenched class system, it would be like a battle between David vs. Goliath.  While adhering to law is the minimum required, we believe that for the Institute to achieve peace in worker relations, it should be proactive and work within the spirit of law. Citizens Forum of alumni has always talked in terms of human rights and dignity of workers in all our interactions with IIT administration. We believe that working with in spirit of the law would be consistent with respect of human rights and dignity.

One of the items high on our list is a Grievance Redressal procedure. We raised this issue succinctly at our meeting in March. Unfortunately you had to excuse yourself due to a visit by a government official. We had suggested that a community based system be established where all stakeholders including workers can participate as equal partners. A local committee at each work location, where representatives from contractor, workers and users (professors, staff, students) can attempt to have a fair hearing and resolve disputes. Such a system already exists in the form of Mess committees except it leaves out an input from workers.

Without a grievance system in place, abuse by contractors can never be checked. No one can understand it better than a community, where we have a large number of people as engineers that any system can only function adequately when there is a feedback loop. In the case of workers unless they are given voice to settle their grievances equitably, we can never have a satisfactory system. Such a provision exists for the regular employees at the Institute and presumably grievances are addressed in a satisfactory manner. Experience has clearly shown numerous times that left to its vices a contractor is not likely to deal with it in a fair and just manner. We believe that there is no reason that the workers be treated as pawns and left at the whims of contractor or some official.

A notion that any sort of grievance redressal is contrary to Institute’s interest is false. We also pointed this out at our March meeting.  To believe in total independent relationship between contractor and worker is not realistic. As we mentioned that outside of construction sector, all contract jobs are of perennial nature. It is only normal that Institute has certain requirements or preferences and it will intervene at those times for a harmonious and satisfactory service. Consequently the Institute should not at all hesitate in facilitating establishment of grievance solving systems and local committees can then handle them.  You may also remember that in 2nd part of our meeting last March which took place at Visitors’ Hostel, you had agreed that Grievance redressal committees would be an appropriate approach.

While you are in a phase of receiving advice from various sectors, it is important that you are well informed on various aspects as of now but also a history of this chronic problem which more than continues to nag the administration and a huge cost to the livelihood and violation of dignity of workers who provide essential services to IITK community. It is important to know what has worked and what has not. In 2007, after three work place related deaths, a lot of rules and procedures were suggested through on office order dated Sep 16 (also available at our website https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bxoi2voVZbTgeTBoM2lLQjlCbzA/edit?pli=1). But at the same time Institute decided to take control of MWMC where informal system of volunteers collapsed and it lost its credibility with the workers. That 2007 office order has only created more paperwork yet it has become devoid of implementation of its own directives.

Prof. Manna, while issues are complex, it is important to take a holistic approach, learning from past and without being bound by our traditional ways and by assuming a leadership in doing things differently. You mentioned in your reply that you are committed to set up a clean and transparent system regarding workers, we applaud you for this. We believe that most of our suggestions above are consistent with that vision.

Once again we commend you for your commitment to justice and discipline. While we agree with you that nothing is perfect in real life, but just as we strive to deliver excellent education to the students and to do excellent research and expect excellence from students, in the same vein we must excel in our treatment of workers respecting their rights and dignity and thus make IITK a model citizen.

With best regards,

Sushil Handa (batch of 66)

On behalf of Citizens' Forum of IITK alumni