Proposals
In consultation with campus community members, we have tried to collect various proposals for a constructive engagement. Apart from this, several collectives within the campus have put forth their own proposals which we endorse and promote. You can find details of some of these below:
by alumni associated with Citizens' Forum.
This document came up as a consequence of our visit to the campus in early 2013, the details of which can be found here. This document contains detailed outline of immediately actionable items, which we believe will go a long way in solving labor issues within the campus.
by Ashok Gupta for Citizens’ Forum at IITK, in collaboration with Arun Srivastava (1972 Batch), Damodar Agarwal (1975 Batch), P. R. Swarup (Head CIDC and 1975 Batch) and Ram Vikas Manohar (Safety Consultant)
"Between 2007 and 2011, at IIT Kanpur seven contract workers have died and three became seriously injured. We have no record of accidental deaths or injuries prior to 2007. In the wake of three quick deaths within few months in 2007, several committees were set up including Safety & Best Practices Committee under Dr. S. Sundar Kumar Iyer as convener vide office order DIR/IITK/2007/ 89 dated 16th September, 2007. A 52-page report was submitted but not acted upon. Again, in 2011, two workers, within two weeks, fell from high-rise building construction site and died. Once again there was a flurry of activity, formation of committees and production of reports. If history is any guide, the formation of committees and production of reports serve little useful purpose unless IITK is committed to ensuring that its contractors make saving workers’ lives their top priority; believes that most accidents are preventable, and considers that no task is so important that risk of injury to people is justified. From a premier institute like IITK that teaches civil engineering and construction management, a better safety record and use of world class safety practices is expected."
Several campus community members have been struggling in IITK to put in place a semblance of labour rights and dignity at work for the daily wage workers for several years; there have been many efforts in this direction but they have been only marginally successful. The present note is an attempt by some of them to look beyond the present practice towards creating an alternative which can address the problem to a large extent especially in the medium and long term. In this note first they formulate the problem, then look at the various attempts over the years at addressing them and their limitations, and finally they propose an outline of the alternative, that of a worker exchange.
by volunteers of the then Minimum Wage Monitoring Committee
This document lays down broad guidelines so that the Institute's legal obligations as the principal employer under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 and other related acts, are properly discharged. The Institute constituted a Minimum Wage Monitoring Committee (MWMC henceforth) in Nov. 2000 and the guidelines are based on the experience of the committee between 2000 - 2005.