2013-05-16 : Contract Workers at IITK: An assessment of the present situation

1.      You may recall that Hamara Manch (HM) has constantly emphasised the need for systemic changes in the way IITK system works for the contract workers and has come up with concrete suggestions from time to time. After spending years engaging with this complex issue HM has come to the conclusion that there can be no tangible change in the ground conditions without a feedback loop mechanism from the workers.

2.      In the wake of the two tragic deaths at construction sites in Oct-Nov 2012 and due to sustained pressure from various sections of the community since then, which also resulted in an Open House on contract workers’ issue conducted by the Faculty Forum in February and visit of some senior alumni as part of the Citizens’ Forum https://sites.google.com/site/iitkcfdevelopment/) including the current president of the Alumni Association in March, it appears that finally the administration is considering moves towards some basic changes in the way the system functions for contract workers.

3.      Hamara Manch has come to know that the administration is considering some basic changes like:

a.       A welfare office for workers, especially to ensure safety

b.      A standard format for ID cards with specific details of the contract workers

c.       A model contract document with specific clauses for ensuring worker rights as per the law

d.      A model code of conduct for contractors as well as workers

e.       A web page specifically for putting up contract related information

4.      These mechanisms in some ways have been part of the set of demands by HM for a system where workers have a tangible identity and a transparent system for holding the contractors and administration accountable, and to that extent HM welcomes the intent of the administration. At the same time, while these systems are supposedly being introduced FOR the benefits of workers, all this is being done in closed rooms behind the back of workers and without taking them into any sort of confidence. It seems that the primary concern of the administration is to ensure that the Institute is not found wanting vis-a-vis various labour laws at least on formal records. Thus though there is a tacit admission by the administration that the institute was not doing enough to ensure legal rights of the workers, the remedial measures seem to be to ensure water tight documentation rather than actual changes in the conditions of workers.

5.      While these set of new offices, procedures and systems are being considered, the constant demand by HM that first and foremost what is required for ensuring worker rights and dignity in the campus is a system for their voice to be heard has been completely ignored by the administration.

6.      HM is convinced that no such formal system, procedures, offices, processes, etc. are going to work till the workers have the right to voice their opinion and grievances. If the workers are going to work under the mortal fear that as soon as they open their mouth, be it about wages, EPF, ESI, working conditions, or anything else, their very livelihood will be under threat like it is at present, then any formal system will remain only on paper. Worse, the more elaborate the formal system becomes, the more anti-worker it is likely to be as it will become even more formidable and opaque for a worker to approach.

7.      Our fears are based not only on common sense that any system cannot function without a feedback loop and the basic feedback for any system for workers can come only from them and nobody else, but this is also based on our solid experience of 2007 when in the wake of hue and cry after three quick worker deaths, the administration swung into action and came up with an elaborate formal system based on the unprecedented Sept. 16 office order (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bxoi2voVZbTgeTBoM2lLQjlCbzA/edit?pli=1). At the same time, the administration fully appropriated the MWMC, resulting in the collapse of the whole informal system of MWMC volunteers, the workers losing all confidence in the MWMC and the committee becoming defunct as far as workers were concerned.  The Sept. 16 office order was noted more for its lack of implementation than anything else; its only result was more paperwork and an incredibly inefficient bureaucratic machinery that soon collapsed under its own weight.

8.      Hamara Manch  is apprehensive  that the administration is likely to repeat the tragic mistakes of 2007 which finally led to things becoming even more exploitative for workers, resulting in increased harassment / arbitrary firings, and finally manifesting in four construction deaths in 17 months in 2011-12.

9.      If there has to be any step towards dignity and rights of workers, its bedrock has to be the worker voice mediated by community participation, as expressed in the Open House resolution (https://sites.google.com/site/iitkcfdevelopment/our-efforts/community/openhouse-2013). A recent instance of how formal systems by themselves are inadequate as well as counterproductive is the compensation to the family of Ram Sharan, the last worker casualty in the campus. While the institute and contractor have washed their hands off after claiming that they have deposited the compensation money with the labour courts, Samtuliya, the widow and the young kids are languishing in Bihar, six months after losing their only breadwinner. And with the one-person enquiry report as usual exonerating the Institute as well as the contractor of any responsibility in this matter, the construction on the building site and life in the campus in general is going on at its full pace.

10.  The administration is choosing to reduce the whole effort ensuing from significant community concerns (including faculty members, students, staff, alumni and workers) to merely putting in place a legally foolproof system. They claim that the system would do away with the need for any grievance redressal system – ‘workers would not need to complain’. Without a feedback mechanism this would anyway come about as workers would not complain as they would have no platform to complain. Thus this is a call to all the concerned community members to come together and raise their collective voice in favour of a system where workers’ grievance voicing mechanism becomes an integral part of any new system for ensuring their rights. Only then can we take the first real step towards ensuring some minimum dignity to the workers.

In case you have any suggestions and/ or would like to participate in this process in any manner, please drop a reply mail.