2020-10-15 : (On certain recent positive developments in the context of workers amidst CoViD-19)

Dear Friends,

This is to share with you some positive developments with regard to the mess workers over the past two weeks. As you know, the mess workers’ collective had sought the community's support for the Institute to take into consideration the views and needs of these workers, who had received no wages for the past four months. We are happy to report that the community's support has resulted in the following outcomes:  1.     To ensure that the limited mess work that is opening up as students slowly return to campus is shared amongst a larger group of workers, the Institute so far has rotated one set of workers after 15 days while another set is supposed to be replaced after a month.  2.     The institute has consulted the mess workers to find out who are the most in need amongst them for immediate employment, and taken their input into account in the selection of workers for the second round of re-hiring as more students return to the campus. Though there is some variation across workers from different halls in terms of how many such workers are being re-hired, in all cases, at least some of those on the lists provided by the workers' collective are being considered for work.  3.     A financial aid of Rs. 6000 each has been given to all 700 mess workers at the end of September. Immediately workers began a solidarity drive and made collections for those canteen workers who have been associated with them all through this process and this week have provided each of them with Rs. 3000/ support.  The role of wardens and concerned student representatives has been crucial in making the above possible. And yet a majority of mess workers still remain out of employment. We look forward to sustained support from the community as the process of mess re-opening continues over the next few months.  Hamara Manch Oct. 15, 2020