[Reader-list] Fifth posting: Migrant workers on the I T corridor (venkat t)

[venkat sarai]

hi Rohan

Thanks for the inputs,

you have brought an important question. Why are the locals not employed?
though the obvious answer is that they are better equipped to organise. but
I think we need to unpack that further only because the answer seems too
obvious.

of course as you have pointed out, as long as work is taxing and leisure
less, there is very little opportunity for the work force to come together
and organise

thank you once again and we will keep exchanging out experiences

venkat

On 7/25/07, Rohan DSouza <virtuallyme at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Venkat,
>
> Read your posting with interest. The situation in Bangalore too seems
> very similar to what you have outlined in Chennai.
>
> A boom in the real estate industry is fuelling the need for more and
> more construction labour and those with different skills from various
> parts of the country (masons from Rajasthan/MP, electricians from
> W.Bengal etc). And of course local labour is not employed for various
> reasons, one of the main being that they could organise themselves
> with local/political support.
>
> Upon interaction with workers here also, the reactions seem similar -
> pay is much better than at their native places, there is regular work
> through contractors and in Bangalore the climate factor also plays a
> part.
>
> Contractors build on the worker database through word of mouth,
> referrals, so the availability of such labour is continuous and
> without them having to spend anything on recruitment costs.
> Accomodation is in tin sheds with very basic facilities. And as you
> have mentioned workers hang around in linguistic/state based groups
> with very little interaction with others.
>
> Seems like as long as the movement of labour is fluid, composition
> diverse, work non-stop and taxing, would be difficult for the workers
> to pause, reflect, organise and demand better pay, working conditions!
>
> Rgds,
> Rohan
>
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 23:34:09 +0530
> > From: "venkat t" <venkatt2k at gmail.com>
> > Subject: [Reader-list] Fifth posting: Migrant workers on the I T
> >         corridor
> > To: reader-list at sarai.net
> > Cc: meghna sukumar <meghna_sukumar at yahoo.com>,  meghna sukumar
> >         <meghna.248 at gmail.com>, vydir at yahoo.com
> > Message-ID:
> >         <388da81f0707241104w1de230f2w80006e2cd21787d2 at mail.gmail.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; format=flowed
> >
> > Fifth posting: Migrant Workers on IT corridor
> >
> > Of Silence, Resignation and Struggle:
> >
> > Recently we had visited a camp site just off the IT corridor. It was
> > being maintained by a builder who is constructing a number of
> > residential complexes. The population of construction workers was as
> > usual dominated by people from andhra and orrisa. They were housed in
> > a vacant land close to the work site. more than 500 in a few grounds
> > of plot. The locals resented this encroachment into their space and
> > they have been at logger heads with the builder. Add to this the lack
> > of sanitation facilities at the camp had made the workers use the
> > roads, and any open space as their toilets, compounding the resentment
> > of the locals. As the rains hit Chennai, the lands were flooded
> > forcing the workers to take up shelter on the roads and in front of
> > houses. This was the last straw and the residents took up the issue
> > with the police and on a fine morning just as the workers were waking
> > up to their daily chores, the police came in force accompanied by the
> > local assistant commissioner and evicted them. With only a supervisor
> > around, and with the handicap of language the workers had to move into
> > to the work site. Those who tried to put a semblance of resistance
> > were threatened with dire consequences.
> >
> > Far away from home, the migrant population is learning to face the
> > problems of the urban poor. They live in some of the most appalling
> > conditions in the absence of any basic facilities to lead a normal
> > life. At the mercy of their contractors, they often endure worst forms
> > of suffering. The city steadily erodes their dignity of life. We have
> > often repeated the conditions in which they live and it needs no
> > further description. but one question that rises in our minds is Why
> > is their no struggle? Is there a lack of resistance or is it that it
> > is not visible to us?
> >
> > here I am just thinking aloud from what I gather from the field. Some
> > of the reasons that strike me for the absence of any strong resistance
> > are a) the workers have come far away from the native places to a city
> > that is still alien to them and thus are tied to their contractor and
> > through him to their employer. b) In spite of the low wages they still
> > earn at least twice as much as they would have earned in their native
> > places and their families have come to rely upon their remittances c)
> > They feel that they are at least assured regular work in the cities
> > and a break with the contractors might ruin their chances. d) They
> > come from an environment where they have not been exposed to mass
> > organisation. e) and finally their sheer ignorance of their rights
> > makes it impossible for them to place a clear set of demands
> >
> > but the larger question is Do they perceive themselves as a group of
> > workers, in other words is there among them a working class
> > consciousness? Though every worker clearly knows his/her role, they do
> > not bind themselves together as a unit, they are still clubbed into
> > their own small bands centred around the contractor who has come
> > brought them to the work site. Their point of contact remains their
> > immediate contractor and not the principal employer.  further we find
> > that there is very little interaction between the different lingual
> > groups that co habit and work together. Thus the workers are too
> > fragmented to put up any collective demand
> >
> > secondly the workers know that they can be easily replaced with others
> > who continue to flow into the city from their towns and villages. Thus
> > the danger of losing their work is real and founded.
> >
> > while the afore mentioned reasons point to the inability of the
> > migrant workers to organise and agitate, we have come across at least
> > two instances where the workers have, for brief moments, put up an
> > organised struggle. In both instances they had returned to work after
> > a  minor compromise. The strikes and the unity has not been sustained,
> > or at least seems to be so. The fact that they could come to gather as
> > a single collective shows that there is  a growing consciousness among
> > them, but away from the glare of the media and without a proper
> > organised union there seems to be little chance that such isolated
> > actions would ever bear fruit.
> >
> > during an interaction with some students of journalism, the role of
> > the educated youth among the workers (of whom there are considerable
> > number)  in bringing about a collective consciousness was raised. It
> > would be interesting to study this factor as well as the smaller and
> > more localised protests that might be occuring. We hope we have some
> > more answers in the next post.
> >
> > please write to me with your comments. I have only recorded my views
> > without any clear theoretical backing and it would be immensely
> > enriching to have some inputs on this as well sharing of similar
> > experiences.
> >
> > Venkat
> >
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