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

https://nirvaakiitk.wordpress.com/2020/09/15/an-appeal-to-iitk-community-members-from-mess-and-canteen-workers/).

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