March 5th, 2013, 4:00pm, meeting with Vishnu Shukla (labour lawyer)

    Vishnu Shukla is a labor lawyer based in Kanpur, who has been associated with workers’ issues in the campus since a long time. Presently he is handling at least two cases of workers: that of Environmental Building construction workers, and that of Shyam Manohar ji (driver). He explained to us situation of the two cases, the situation in law, and most importantly, the way the labor courts function in practice. While much of it has already been noted in the various documents that are in circulation, the unfriendly nature of process also became clear in the course of the discussion: courts holding hearings in far off cities perhaps for personal reasons dressed up as official, the continuous greasing needed to keep the process moving, the issues with legal language, the prejudices against the appellant workers amongst others. Added to it is the personal crisis: the loss of wages for attending the hearings apart from other direct expenses, the loss of a collective as promoted by the case processes, and the sucking up of the most energetic from any other possible engagement.