[Reader-list] [caravan99] Gurgaon Workers News - Newsletter 9 (February 2008) (fwd)

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Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:33:51 +0100
From: "antoniamautempo at gmx.net" <antoniamautempo at gmx.net>
Reply-To: caravan99 at lists.riseup.net,
     "antoniamautempo at gmx.net" <antoniamautempo at gmx.net>
To: caravan99 at lists.riseup.net
Subject: [caravan99] Gurgaon Workers News - Newsletter 9 (February 2008)

Gurgaon Workers News - Newsletter 9 (February 2008)
(full version at: www.gurgaonworkersnews.wordpress.com)

Gurgaon in Haryana is presented as the shining India, a symbol of
capitalist success promising a better life for everyone behind the
gateway of development. At a first glance the office towers and shopping
malls reflect this chimera and even the facades of the garment factories
look like three star hotels. Behind the facade, behind the factory walls
and in the side streets of the industrial areas thousands of workers
keep the rat-race going, producing cars and scooters for the
middle-classes which end up in the traffic jam on the new highway
between Delhi and Gurgaon. Thousands of young middle class people lose
time, energy and academic aspirations on night-shifts in call centres,
selling loan schemes to working-class people in the US or pre-paid
electricity schemes to the poor in the UK. Next door, thousands of
rural-migrant workers uprooted by the agrarian crisis stitch and sew for
export, competing with their angry brothers and sisters in Bangladesh or
Vietnam. And the rat-race will not stop; on the outskirts of Gurgaon,
Asia's biggest Special Economic Zone is in the making. The following
newsletter documents some of the developments in and around this
miserable boom region. If you want to know more about working and
struggling in Gurgaon, if you want more info about or even contribute to
this project, please do so via:

www.gurgaonworkersnews.wordpress.com
gurgaon_workers_news at yahoo.co.uk

In the Febuary issue you can find:

1) Proletarian Experiences -
Daily life stories and reports from a workers' perspective

*** Mass Redundancies in the Gurgaon Textile Export Sector
In late autumn 2007 tens of thousands of garment workers in Gurgaon were
sacked. The textile exports to the US slackened, partly due to the
relatively strong Rupee. In Gurgaon the paradox of capitalist boom and
crisis is obvious. Private developers like DLF and Reliance thrive on
the industrial and stock-market-boom, attracting billions of Rupees from
international finance capital flows and thereby increasing the value of
the Rupee. With the capital they attract these companies are heavily
involved in setting up the Special Economic Zone in Gurgaon, of which
the Textile Export Park is of major importance. Their boom, the
increased value of the Rupee, is at the same time part of the reason for
the slump in textile exports, a sector these very companies want to
boost. All this would be a mediocre math game, if it were not about the
resulting misery of thousands of working class families, e.g. like those
of the Fashion Express workers (see update in this issue). Attached are
several short reports from textile workers in Gurgaon, told to friends
from FMS in September 2007. It becomes obvious that the economic cycle
of the textile sector does not allow these workers to build up the
upward pressure on wages like workers in the local metal and automobile
industries currently do (see reports on several spontaneous actions to
enforce the payment of the new minimum wage in this issue).

*** Thoughts on Gurgaon Kidney Trade and the local Medical-Industrial
Complex, January 2007
Mid-January 2008 the media reported on a private clinic in Gurgaon that
during the last eight to nine years has removed about 500 kidneys,
mainly from migrant workers, for the global organ trade. Most of these
workers are very likely to be dead by now. This 'scandal' is just one
public secret side of the capitalist drive to open new markets by
opening bodies, be it as source or receivers of 'new' commodities:
organs, stem cells, drugs, fertility treatment, abortions, surgery
services. In Gurgaon the general 'body shop' is yet another boom sector.
If you have a look at the specific industrial composition in Gurgaon you
will notice that Gurgaon is an eldorado for bio-technology and the
extension of the body market: a constant supply of desperate and cheap
bodies from the poor parts of India (or from recently sacked garment
workers?!), dozens of private clinics and medical institutions, dozens
of pharmaceutical laboratories of major international companies, state
subsidies for 'clean industries', a rich career-orientated upper
middle-class in need of medical treatment or adjusmtment, a pleasant
(medical-)'tourism infrastructure', well established (transport-)links
to international markets, a mafia-type collaboration between state and
private sector. In Gurgaon the capitalist production process consumes
bodies on a daily basis, without producing media worthy 'scandals'. On a
daily basis poor labourers are mutilated and die in factories, on
construction sites, on the way to or from work. Their injuries and
deaths are often covered by the very same mechanisms that made the
'kidney trade scandal' possible: victims of industrial accidents are
brought to company-friendly doctors, the official administrations turn a
blind eye, the victims are victimised once more (see the report on
industrial accidents in newsletter #7). First we briefly summarise the
facts on the 'kidney scandal' and then consider some questions
concerning the systemic and 'unscandalous' elements behind it, and
conclude with a brief over-view of the medical-industrial complex in
Gurgaon.

***Short news item on police raids against 'illegal' migrant workers in
Gurgaon, December 2007
In Gurgaon Workers News #8 we already covered the issue of an increasing
safety paranoia of the local upper middle classes in Gurgaon. Against
the background of the 'kidney scandal' the public (meaning ruling
class!) opinion tries to turn the 'dangerous classes' (the moving
proletariat!) either into helpless victims or individual punishable
culprits. Given the involvement of the police in both anti-workers
attacks - the collaboration with the kidney mafia and the raids against
migrant workers - the only solution is the strengthening of mutual aid
within the proletarian communities.

2) Collective Action -
Reports on proletarian struggles in the area

*** Workers' spontaneous actions enforce the payment of minimum wage in
several factories, September 2007
In summer 2007 the Haryana government raised the minimum wage from a
monthly 2,540 Rs to now 3,510 Rs. Most of the industrial workers did not
get the minimum wage in the first place, but the government's move seems
to be an anticipation of the general anger and despair amongst the
workers. Friends from Faridabad Majdoor Samaachaar (FMS) collected
various stories from factory workers in the area. They reported that a
lot of companies try to make people sign a pay slip showing the new
minimum wage while actually paying the old one. They also told us that
in several factories workers refused the lower wage, organised
spontaneous strikes and thereby enforced payment of the official minimum
wage. Their actions show that the question of minimum wages is not a
legal one, but is about immediate power relations. While the workers in
the booming automobile sector managed to put pressure on the companies,
their brothers and sisters in the textile sector face massive attacks at
the same time. The stories are told by workers from: Maharaani Paints,
Senden Vikas, Punit Udyog, Pepsi, Shyam Elanyaz, Talbros, Ahuja
Plastics.

*** Up-date on Fashion Express Factory Conflict
In Gurgaon Workers News #3 (May 2007) we reported about a factory
occupation and union conflict at Gurgaon based Fashion Express.
Most workers have been working for 12-16 years at the same factory. The
factory manufactures womens' garments (primarily t-shirts, blouses etc).
In autumn 2007 the management decided to close down the factory. Wages
were not paid. A friend sent a short update in September 2007: "Workers
are also facing a lot of financial difficulties since they have not been
paid in recent months. Their children have already been thrown out of
school once due to non-payment of school fees. After the payment of 50
per cent of the July wages, many children have rejoined school but now
the workers are facing the same problem again. We have a list of the
workers and the amount of school fees each one needs to pay. The total
comes to nearly 34,000". By the end of 2007 all permanent workers at
Fashion Express Udyog Vihar Factory lost their jobs, up to now the issue
of compensation or severance pay is not settled.

3) According to Plan -
General information on the development of the region or on certain
company policies

***Not yet special enough: Special Economic Zones, Part Six -
- Summary on recent news items on the developing SEZ in Gurgaon
The government considers abolishing the 5,000 hectare limit for SEZs and
crisis-ridden Citibank internationalises their debt-disaster by
investing in various IT SEZs in the Gurgaon and Faridabad areas.

4) About the Project -
Updates on Gurgaon Workers News

*** Glossary -
Updated version of the Glossary: things that you always wanted to know,
but could never be bothered to google. Now even in alphabetical order.

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