2018-02-02 :  The Coming New Contracts in the Hall Messes: A Hamara Manch Update

(Editor's Note: Also see, 2018-03-08 : New Contracts in the Hall Messes, developments in VH are chronicled at 2017-08 Mass Dismissals in Visitor's Hostel)

The new contracts in all the 14 halls (hall 1-5, GHT, 7-13 & GH1) are to come in place from March 1. This has implications for more than 750 workers and all the student residents of the hostels. The immediate reason for concern is the upcoming meetings on finalisation of contractors (7th/8th February) in the messes in various halls. Below is a short update in this regard.

Background

1.     The mess story is closely linked with the developments in the VH as we will see below. Please recall that in the VH a new contractor and a new kind of contract was brought in with the promise of a ‘5-star’ service in September last year. The new contract was a fixed price model where all the details about workers and working conditions, and even how the pricing will be worked out, were completely missing. It led to enmasse firing of almost all the old VH workers. The new contractor brought young-fresh workers from remote locations that immediately led to significant destabilisation of services in the VH that was so well run previously and extremely exploitative conditions for the workers. Paradoxically, but not surprisingly, with all the exploitation and poor services, the prices were significantly hiked. We have documented that in some detail and shared with the community from time to time. The details can be found here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mE0sz4RWVxn14vlUutmj7_SMqPOLDXDQ

The New Mess Contracts

2.     We got to know in October that there are serious plans for VH like contracts in all the messes too where once again the institute is only going to look at the overall price without bothering about the details, especially related to the workers. This was called PSPD - Per Student Per Day - model.

3.     The community, especially students across hostels, seriously questioned the model and anticipated that this will lead to VH like situation in messes too, short changing both the workers and the residents (see for instance the critique by Hall 7 residents here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1LV5r7XrkpbEoq0DdR6m6B94pjGYH-Blq). Due to concerted community effort through past several months, this model has been rejected across all the halls for the present cycle of new contracts that will come into effect on March 1. So the messes will be run on the model of the old contract, where a prospective contractor is supposed to provide the details about workers and how they will be deployed, while the material procurement is controlled and supervised by the HEC.

4.     But meanwhile, perhaps in anticipation of the PSPD model, a large number of new and bigger contractors have been empanelled and likely to be given mess contracts.

5.     So, while the VH model of contract has been rejected by the students, there is a possibility of repetition of VH process. While the old contractors can always be faulted based on their actual conduct, there is no real way of evaluating the new ones who can then be rated highly based only on their promises as was done in the VH. Further, even while several of the old contractors have been rated highly by the respective HECs, students are concerned that this feedback might be ignored and the new contractors may be thrust on halls.

6.     A new contractor means destabilisation of both services and working conditions as new contractors are not used to respecting worker rights and are not familiar with the institutionalisation of such rights in IITK – this means they will fire the existing workers and bring in new workers, like what was done in the VH. Incidentally, apparently the DOSA office have asked for a list of all the existing workers and it has been given by the mess managers, but the workers are apprehensive that the list may not have all their names. The workers do not have access to the lists so they cannot verify.  

What the Community Need to Ensure

1.     First and foremost, we need to ensure that the employment of workers, who have been serving the community satisfactorily and earning their livelihood, are protected and due process is followed with respect to hiring of workers in transition from the old to new contracts.

2.     Second, student voices and their feedback should be paramount in deciding the new contracts and new contractors, afterall it is about their food.

3.

     Though our primary concerns are immediate, we cannot miss the big picture that the workers in the messes are toiling from 6.00 am in the morning to 11.00 pm in the night, which is in violation of laws and rights of the workers. At the same time, in most of the messes today hardly any of the workers get a full 26 day employment while an army of supervisors exploit them and get paid for 30-31 days a month! Details on the work conditions in messes are available here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1j-MqQUauxTFg-6YONq8MR-n_Q64OPFtT

We need to ensure that better work conditions prevail in messes and our experience in VH tells us that this is not going to happen by bringing in corporate contractors. The need of the hour is to ensure appropriate clauses in the contract to protect worker rights and appropriate oversight mechanisms in the hostel messes to see that they are implemented. And in this regard the first and foremost step has to be the protection of employment of the present workers across halls, including reallocation among halls to account for shortfalls and excess. 

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Editor's Note: To ensure that the documents are accessible even when the original links are inaccessible, CF has replaced original links with copies maintained by CF.