2020-09-17 : Hamara Manch Update (on what can be done ahead, continued)
Dear Friends,
As you know, the first set of students will be arriving on campus next
week, and arrangements are now being made for their messing. A few days
earlier we shared with you the mess workers appeal to the community in
this regard, where they asked to be made part of the process in making
decisions regarding messing (available at
Knowing that only limited number of students will be coming back to the
campus in the near future, and that COVID protocols require that the
Institute regulate entry/exit of workers to campus from outside, the
workers understand that not all of them will immediately get work. Under
these circumstances, they have come up with the remarkable plan to share,
not just the work, but also the wages thus earned, amongst their entire
collective. In this regard, they are in the process of doing the
following:
1) Seeking the requirements of workers as per the Institute plans for all
the tasks related to messing.
2) Identifying sets of workers who together can perform all tasks related
to preparing and distributing food to the given number of students. These
sets of workers are ready to perform the work in rotation as per Institute
norms.
3) Creating a solidarity fund to which all earning workers will contribute
to ensure that those who do not get work are not left without any
financial resources.
Here are workers who have received no regular income for the past five
months, whose families are in dire financial straits, who are all
desperate to get back to work. And yet, they are working together to
ensure that even if only some of them get work, the benefit of those
earnings reaches all of them. And they are ready to do this keeping in
mind the needs of both the Institute and the students.
But for this to be possible, the workers need community intervention to
ensure that their voice is heard, that the administration takes their
inputs into consideration while deciding how work is to be distributed
amongst the workers.
We need to take this up urgently in every way we can. It would really help
if we come up with concrete suggestions from this group.
Hamara Manch
Sept. 17, 2020