2011-09-19 : Hamara Manch Update [Systemic Issues, Due Process, Accountability]

Dear Friends,

Much has been happening on many fronts at Hamara Manch, and for once, there is some qualified good news as a few of the individual workers' issues that we have shared with you earlier have been resolved at least partially. However, even as some individual problems are addressed, the deep-seated systemic problems become even more glaringly obvious. Our update this time, therefore, is in terms of these systemic issues rather than individual cases.

1. Due Process and Grievance Redressal: With no due process in place to handle disciplinary procedures, there is absolute arbitrariness in handing out punishments to workers by contractors. Here are a few instances:
2. (a) A horticulture worker with Green Earth was summarily dismissed for the 'offence' of eating left-over snacks from an Institute event which he had been invited to have after the event had ended. The worker was reinstated after about a week following intervention in the case by the faculty member in whose servant quarter the worker lived. He has, however, now been given duty for only 15 days per month.
3. (b) Another horticulture worker, who worked for many years in the grounds near the Mechanical Engineering dept., was summarily dismissed as he was considered 'too old' for the job.
4. (c) Yet another horiculture worker, again with Green Earth, was summarily dismissed for not reporting for one day of extra work and refusing to sign on a pre-written application whose contents were not made evident to him.
5. (d) Two VH workers were “transferred out of IITK” for an alleged mishandling of a guest's payment. Since no place has been specified as the target for this alleged “transfer”, it is obviously an effective dismissal. An enquiry was held in this case, but its report has not been made available to the dismissed workers. There is no concrete evidence of any mishandling, and one of the workers dismissed was not even on duty at the time of the alleged transaction. The contractor has made it clear that the dismissal has been at the insistence of VH administration.
6. It is significant to note that at least in two of the above cases, the workers dismissed are those who had been fired arbitrarily earlier (last year) and had got back their jobs only after vigorous community intervention. During this year, these workers have faced constant harassment from their bosses, and have now been victimized once again. In another similar case, two experienced Electrical workers, who were reinstated after being arbitrarily dismissed, are being made to do all sorts of 'helper' work and are being paid at unskilled rates since their reinstatement. They are well aware that they will be dismissed at the slightest excuse.
7. Lack of any accountability for contractors: While workers are punished severely for the slightest, and sometimes no, offense, contractors face NO action from the Institute irrespective of what they do. In none of the above cases, for example, was there any action taken against contractors who dismissed workers arbitrarily for no reason even after the workers were found suitable for reinstatement. Similarly, in a case we brought to your attention earlier -- of a worker who was not paid his salary for over 17 months -- the case was seen to be 'resolved' last month when the worker got his back salary (in three installments, and with no interest), but with no assurance that he would now onwards get his salary on time, or any kind of action being taken against the contractor for this blatant violation of the law.

The above point to the underlying reasons for the prevailing atmosphere of fear that pervades the working lives of all contract workers on campus. Within such an atmosphere of fear, one can well imagine the kind of exploitation taking place; we get glimpses of this when occasionally workers come to one Hamara Manch meeting, report a gross violations (such as getting Rs. 80-160 per day for work, while the minimum wage for unskilled work is currently Rs. 247 per day), and then 'disappear' since attending a meeting/reporting such violations is itself enough to earn themselves constant harassment at work and even dismissal. And most cases of violations, of course, never get reported.

This atmosphere of fear cannot be tackled through band-aid measures directed at individual cases as has been done by the Institute. Even there, the Institute’s ‘response’ has been to community pressure rather than any individual’s appeal in isolation. Over the past year, Hamara Manch and the IITK Citizen’s Forum (an IITK alumni initiative with regard to workers’ rights on campus) have become stronger as collective fronts in tackling these issues. Interestingly, the Institute’s direct response to this growing collective strength has been to spend considerable amount of time and resources in attacking and attempting to undermine the credibility of both fronts through letters sent to alumni email groups. In response to such attacks, an alumni representative came to IITK a few weeks back on an independent fact-finding mission, focusing specifically on the case of the workers’ deaths that occurred over this summer. The resulting “Fact Finding Report by Shamim Akhtar” (dated Sept. 1, 2011), along with

the entire background to the cases, are available at http://sites.google.com/site/iitkcitizensforum/ (under the first item for ‘Announcements’).

WHAT CAN WE DO?:

The institute’s response – both redressal in individual cases under community pressure and strongly antagonism towards the collective fora themselves – clearly indicates that collective community action is, in the long run, the only way to create a workplace that respects the basic human dignity of contract workers. As a first step in tackling these systemic issues, we invite you to participate in Hamara Manch’s attempt to put together a protocol of disciplinary measures for both contractors and workers. Such a protocol would go a long way in mitigating the current atmosphere of fear surrounding contract workers on campus by bringing some parity and justice in dealings that have been, as is evident from the above-cited cases, completely arbitrary and grossly one-sided to date. We look forward to your responses and cooperation.