[Reader-list] Michael Aram Exports workers' struggle: good news

[mahmood farooqui]

Dear Shankar and Jeebesh,


There are many ways one could begin to respond to the happy ending of
the workers' struggle.

As a real life Swades, with Shankar arriving here as an academic,
getting radicalised with and by the workers and fighting along side to
win this settlement.

As a post-historic comment on the unresolved dead-end in Aaghaat,
Goving Nihalani's offering about how to lead a workers' struggle in a
third world country where violence is a norm when inflicted upon the
workers and an aberration when committed by the workers.

As a glorious affirmation to the mail Jeebsh wrote, a mail which one
can call admonitory if not chastising, on the occasion of the whole
world and myself running to town about the police beating workers in
Gurgaon, a few months ago.

As a unique triumph of a strategy of protest and resistance, conceived
and put into practice by a genuine collective in which the bourgeois
organiser and the toiling worker merge their roles into each other.

As one of the very few instances of justice being earned by the
workers in this our belighted land.

The workers's victory may consign them back to the hell that was their
working condition, as Shankar had pointed out in his photographic
essay in Tehelka, but it is not an end of their journey.

I could say more but there is hardly any point in getting
sentimental-perhaps it is time for us to hear what the victors have to
say about it all...

Chalte raho saathi, doobte suraj ko raah dikhaane ke liye, taaki use
palatne ki raah mil sake...

Mahmood


On 30/01/06, Jeebesh Bagchi <jeebesh at sarai.net> wrote:
> Dear friends,
>
> I am very happy to inform you that the twenty Michael
> Aram Exports workers along with Ramdev's widow, Shibu
> Devi, were appointed this week as permanent employees
> of Michael Aram's new, operational company, MA Design
> India Private Limited, Okhla Industrial Area Phase I.
> They received appointment letters in hand, along with
> back wages, bonuses, dearness allowance arrears, and
> other due payments, on January 25, 2006.
>
> Michael Aram is seeking to put these workers back to
> work ideally within a revitalized version of their
> former unit, B156, or else at a proximate and as yet
> undetermined factory site.  Please check
> www.justiceforworkers.org for updates on this
> transition process.
>
> May I express my deep thanks to all of you for your
> advice, empathy, support, and encouragement throughout
> this struggle.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Shankar Ramaswami
> Ph.D. Candidate
> University of Chicago
>
> Justice for Workers
> www.justiceforworkers.org
>
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