2020-08-09: Workers@iitk Amidst the COVID Lockdown (Hamara Manch Update III): The Canteen Workers in the Academic Area

It is now more than four months since the disruptions due to lockdowns and related closure of various activities in the campus. In all these months there has been little conversation on the workers and the consequences of lockdown on their lives. As students, regular staff, faculty and administration have been busy coping with contingencies in their own respective domain, we have almost forgotten about those who make the campus habitable every day for us. Many of those workers have continued to serve us amidst the pandemic. Hamara Manch has been trying to keep in touch with various kinds of workers amidst all the disruptions in their lives and has been attempting to put together their stories and updates in these uncertain times. In the first two updates (available here: https://sites.google.com/site/iitkcfdevelopment/) we reported about the mess workers.

Based on our conversation with some of the concerned workers, in the third update in the series we discuss the conditions at work and post lockdown of the canteen workers in the academic area. While in our break from work and studies for a cup of tea we may be encountering these workers almost every day, yet this set perhaps has been among those who have been working in the most exploitative conditions, where every labour law was being violated even before the lockdown. And since the lockdown these workers have been completely forgotten by the community and administration, and have been trying to continue with their lives without any remuneration for more than five months.

The Canteen Workers in the Academic Area

Conditions at Work in the Canteens

Till recently the DoAA canteen as well as the CC canteen was being run by a well known established chain in the city that runs multiple outlets called Pandit’s (https://www.pandits.co.in/). Though the DoAA canteen runs almost round the clock, this account is from the workers who used to work in the day shift with Pandit’s at DoAA canteen. Their duty hours were from 8.00am to 8.00pm and salaries ranged from Rs. 7,000/ to 12,000/. Those who serve and manage the counter got around Rs. 7000/ while some of the senior cooks were paid Rs. 10-12,000/. Though the canteen used to work through the month, the workers were being given up to four days off. There were in total around 20 workers employed here for the general plus the night shift along with a supervisor. The main food items being served on the campus, where Pandit’s had three outlets till last year, were being regularly supplied from their central kitchen in Lajpatnagar. The supplies came twice a day, once in the morning and then around lunchtime. Apparently one of the reasons Pandit’s lost the DoAA canteen contract in October last year was because there were complaints about their food as the canteen management regularly asked workers to serve stale leftovers from the previous day.

When Pandit’s lost the contract for the DoAA canteen, it accommodated four of those who used to work at the DoAA canteen in its remaining two outlets on campus, three at CC and one person in the ShopC outlet. At CC the pay continued to be the same, Rs. 7000/ per month with four Sundays off as this canteen is closed on Sundays. The work timings are also similar from 8.00am to 8.00pm and some of the cooks were being paid a higher amount. Though work hours were one and half times of the statutorily stipulated 8 hours, and the salaries were less than half of the statutory minimum wages, what workers complained about the most was regarding the delays in the payment of even these paltry wages. Apparently even those who have been working for Pandit’s for years complained that they were never paid the full salary at once and never got their monthly dues cleared before the 20th or so of the following month. And they were always paid in cash in arbitrary amounts at the whims and fancy of the supervisor (who used to sit in the ShopC outlet of Pandit’s), and that too after a lot of pleading and cajoling.

In the Southern lab canteen (behind CCD) the regular work hours are from 9.00am to 6.00pm. Total seven persons are employed there and the salaries vary from Rs. 5,000 to 10,000. For instance, a person who joined there a few months before the lockdown as a helper in the kitchen was being paid Rs. 5000/ per month with Sundays being weekly off as the canteen is closed on Sundays. It is worth mentioning that the Southern Lab canteen is run by a very small contractor compared to Pandit’s. In fact the contractor himself works as a cashier in the canteen and his financial status would be barely above the workers he employs. And though the wages are way below the minimum wages (similar to the other canteens), they were paid on time.

After the Lockdown

In the Pandit’s canteen at CC the workers received their January salaries sometime in late February, but till Holi (March 10th) they had not received the Feb. payment. Just before the lockdown had become imminent, after a lot of pleading, each of them was given Rs. 1500/ on 17th March. In April after multiple reminders the contractor asked them to Whatsapp their a/c details and said he’d look into clearing their remaining dues soon. But then all the phone calls and messages from the workers went unanswered. A particular worker (a single mother of two sons in 8th and 10th classes), desperate for her son’s admissions for the new session, after trying everything finally managed a Rs. 3000/ advance from the contractor in early July. Later in the middle of July, the contractor asked all the workers to come to the Mall Road outlet and there he gave the balance of the wages to each of them. Please note that this only cleared their Feb. dues in late July and he promised that their March dues would be paid before the festival of Raksha Bandhan falling on 3rd August. He promised that he would himself come to IIT and clear their dues. At least till 6th August (that Hamara Manch is aware of) the March dues of Pandit’s canteen workers have not been cleared, let alone any further compensation for the period of the lockdown either by the contractor or, for that matter, the institute or IITK community. Thus, though these workers had been serving the IITK community six days a week (sometimes all the seven), 12 hours a day till March 2020, all they have received as compensation or any other kind of support is their wages for the month of February in 2-3 instalments in the last six months. The condition of these workers can be summed up well in the words of one of the workers of the CC canteen. When he pleaded to be given his unpaid dues as his mother was unwell, the supervisor apparently retorted, “Ganga mein phek do (throw her in the Ganges)”. Another worker observed that at work at Pandit’s there were rules for everything, time to come, wear all the protections, hygiene, and so on, “but when we ask for salaries there are no rules, unhein saanp soongh jata hai (they become dumb founded)”.

Apparently, the new operator of the DoAA canteen, while continuing with the same salaries and work hours as Pandit’s, has at least cleared all the dues for the days worked by his workers through March. In Southern lab canteen, workers have not been paid for March, though we were told that the work dues of two of the senior most workers have been cleared.

But for an exception or two, most of these workers presently have not been able to find any alternate employment, though many of them have experience of doing other kinds of work in their previous jobs. Without any source of income, they are struggling to make ends meet. For instance one of them, a single mother, has a grown up daughter who is in BCom IIIrd year and has to keep borrowing for her education and for their daily expenses. One of the things that has physically kept these workers going for all these months is the state provision of cereals through the PDS - each ration card entitles them for 2 kg rice and 3 kg wheat per month. We would like to end this update with the words of one of the workers, who had earlier worked in one of the spice factories in Kanpur where she was better paid, yet she left that and joined a canteen here because, “yahan par log achche hain aur unki bhasha achi hai, wahan bahut gali dete the aur phir ham kah bhi to sakte hain ki ham IIT mein kam karte hain (people are nice here and they talk decently, they used to swear a lot in the other place, and then I can say that I am working for IIT).” 

With all the conditions of work and pay and after having not been paid for all these months this worker still identifies with IIITK, but do the community and IITK have any responsibility towards her in this very difficult moment in her life?

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Attachment: HM 3rd Covid Update.pdf