[Reader-list] Gurgaon Workers News - Newsletter 14 (November 2008)

[Rohan DSouza]

Dear Jeebesh,

Appreciate you sending this newsletter. It is clear from the various
postings in it that the unsung work force is being seriously affected
by the global slowdown, which doesnt really get media coverage.

Recently, on one of the many English TV news channels, there was a
report of how a Tata car factory may have to be closed down due to the
economic slowdown. While it was a piece of news that conveyed
information that certainly was not heartening, the slant of the piece
was how this would affect the bottomlines of the Tata group. Hardly
any mention was made about those (the workforce) who would lose
livelihood and to me be much more seriously affected than Ratan Tata
and his managerial juggernaut.

The increasingly middle/upper class, urban focused media doesnt seem
to have the time and the interest to even make a passing mention of
these people. Whenever it happens, it is like in the case of where a
CEO of a company was assauIted and killed by workers.

In this context, I came across an interesting article by Kalpana
Sharma in the Hindu (pasted below), which talks of another segment of
the urban population that services middle class neighbourhoods among
others, ie, street vendors and others in the informal sector and how
they have been hit by changes in the economy. And how this has escaped
the attention of the 'all-seeing, 'all-exposing' media machines of the
present age!

Regards,
Rohan

http://www.hindu.com/mag/2008/11/16/stories/2008111650070300.htm
  Faceless citizens

KALPANA SHARMA

The people who pay the price for changes in the economy are those in
the informal sector like street vendors, yet their stories never make
it to the front pages.

Photo: N. Sridharan

Robbed of a vocation and a voice: A vendor.

Every alternate day, for as long as I can remember, a vendor selling
vegetables loaded on a handcart parked himself in our neighbourhood in
Mumbai. He would push that cart several kilometres from the wholesale
market and arrive in our neighbourhood early in the morning. In a few
hours, his handcart would be emptied of its load as he made his return
trip.

Many people bought small quantities of fresh vegetables from him. Few
knew his name. Yet, when he spoke, you could tell he was a "North
Indian". And if you asked, he told you he was from Jaunpur in Uttar
Pradesh. This nameless vendor provided fresh vegetables at reasonable
prices to a middle class neighbourhood. He also delivered the goods to
your home, free of charge. If you didn't have enough change to pay
him, he would readily agree to wait until the next day. If you
complained about the quality of something you had bought the previous
time, he could immediately replace it, free of charge.
Gone

Our friendly neighbourhood vegetable vendor has disappeared. Without a
trace. No one is able to tell me what happened to him. I ask the man
who sells bananas. He also comes every day by taxi with a basket load
of bananas. In a few hours, his basket is empty. But he doesn't know
what happened to the vegetable vendor.

But we do know what happened. There are two possibilities. He could be
one of the many "North Indians" who is now too frightened to live in
Mumbai after the launch of the anti-outsider tirade by Raj Thackeray
and his Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. Even if they did not attack him
directly, he would have seen the images of hawkers being attacked,
their goods splayed on the street.

Another reason could be economic. A new retail store has opened in the
area selling fresh vegetables at marginally lower prices than what the
vegetable vendor charged. So, even though his vegetables were
decidedly fresher than those sold in the store, and people had an old
relationship with him, the majority graduated to the novelty of going
to the store and buying vegetables wrapped in plastic. The store used
economies of scale to lower prices. The neighbourhood vendor could not
compete. He tried by coming an hour earlier. He tried by reducing the
amount of vegetables he brought on his cart to cut his losses. In the
end, he gave up and disappeared.

I narrate this story, which will have echoes in most other cities
across India, because it tells us of the largest number of people who
are losing jobs and livelihood. The media runs front page stories when
airlines staff are laid off. We hear about redundancies in the private
sector. Raj Thackeray sends his MNS cadre to beat up Biharis trying
for jobs in the railways.

The people who are paying the price for the changes in the economy and
the slowing down of the growth rate are people like this vegetable
vendor. While the spurt in retail in perishables has destroyed the
livelihood of thousands of men and women who survived on their daily
sale of fruits and vegetables, the slowdown has resulted in closing
down thousands of small manufacturing units that were a part of the
informal economy.

Yet, these people remain invisible. Economic problems always mean
stock exchange news, or news of some big factories closing down or
stopping production for a few days. But what will happen to people who
did not have security in their employment, could never dream of a
salaried job, but survived nonetheless on their wits and by providing
a much needed service? Who is counting these losses? Is anyone even
bothered? The tragic part of the agitation launched by Raj Thackeray
is not just that it is irrelevant — he is only bothered about the
minuscule minority of Maharashtrians who are seeking jobs in the
formal sector — but that it is obscuring the real crisis that is
facing millions of people in our cities.

A seven city study of street vendors by Sharit K. Bhowmik for the
National Alliance of Street Vendors of India (NASVI), done several
years ago, gave a human face to a section of our citizenry that we see
everyday but who remain faceless. The study established that Mumbai
has the largest number of hawkers, at that time around 2,00,000,
followed by Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Patna.
Meagre earnings

It revealed that the majority of hawkers, particularly those selling
perishables, earned no more than Rs. 50 to 100 per day. With this,
they had to bribe the police to allow them to sell, if they did not
have a license, and the municipality for so-called "cleaning charges".
In addition, they had to pay daily transportation charges by train or
sometimes even by taxi to the spot where they sold their goods.

Many of the vendors, including the women, were people who had either
worked in factories or in formal employment earlier and faced
redundancies or had members of their families losing secure jobs,
thereby forcing at least one member of the family to becoming a
vendor.

Today, this same vulnerable group of urban dwellers face additional
threats. One is from large retail that can undersell them on most
goods including perishables. And the second, specific to Mumbai, is
the rise of sectarian politics exemplified by Raj Thackeray, whose
targets are the most vulnerable, people who ask nothing of the State
and who have managed to survive and provide a necessary service to the
people of the city.

These "North Indian" vendors, who are as much a part of Mumbai as any
other resident, now fear to protest or speak out about their loss of
livelihood because of Thackeray's campaign. Thus, while the economy
has strangled their livelihood, a politician has muffled their voice.
And the media and the policymakers are looking the other way.

Email the writer: sharma.kalpana at yahoo.com


> Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:17:18 +0530
> From: Jeebesh <jeebesh at sarai.net>
> Subject: [Reader-list] Gurgaon Workers News - Newsletter 14 (November
>        2008)
> To: Sarai Reader-list <reader-list at sarai.net>
> Message-ID: <7FC1096E-DA6B-46B0-ADAE-74175C0B9ED3 at sarai.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"; format=flowed; delsp=yes
>
> From: <gurgaon_workers_news at yahoo.co.uk>
>
> Gurgaon Workers News - Newsletter 14 (November 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 November issue you can find:
>
> 1) Proletarian Experiences -
> Daily life stories and reports from a workers' perspective
>
> *** Short Reports from Workers employed in factories in Gurgaon and
> Faridabad
> The workers told their stories to Faridabad Majdoor Samaachaar
> (Faridabad Workers' News), they were published and re-distributed in
> the industrial areas in August 2008. At least three of the workers
> employed in the textile export industry report that numbers of workers
> have dropped to a third of the previous level and that wages are
> heavily delayed. Particularly the story of the workers employed by the
> multinational shoe-manufacturer Bata is revealing. The workers are
> employed by:
>
> Bata (shoes)
> DS Buhin (automobile)
> Eastern Medikit (medical equipment)
> Gaurav International (textile)
> Grafty Export (textile)
> Hari Om Precision Tools (machine manufacturing)
> Kanchan International (textile)
> KRF
> Lara Export (textile)
> Neolight
> Premium Security
> Sanden Vikas (automobile)
> Spark (textile)
> SPL Industries (textile)
> Sundari Export (textile)
>
> 2) Collective Action -
> Reports on proletarian struggles in the area
>
> *** Yet another short wildcat strike at Hero Honda plant
> After a short strike at Hero Honda plant in Dharuhera plant in May
> 2008 and a wildcat sit-down by casual workers at Honda (HMSI) plant in
> Gurgaon/Manesar in September 2008, the news reported about another
> action early October 2008. It would be important to know more about
> the impact of the current slump in automobile production in India on
> these casual workers and their permanent struggles, given that e.g.
> Tata announced lay-offs of 700 workers hired through contractors at
> its truck plant and nearly all two-wheeler manufacturers complain
> about a decrease in sales this autumn.
>
> *** Different view on the strike and killing of the factory manager at
> Italian automobile supplier in NOIDA
> In GurgaonWorkersNews no.13 we summarised some first news items on the
> workers' struggle related death of the factory manager at Graziano
> Transmissioni (auto parts supplier) in NOIDA, Delhi. Since then more
> thorough stuff has been written on the matter. First some notes about
> the similarity between the incident at Graziano and the police attack
> on Honda HMSI workers in Gurgaon in 2005 showing that workers will
> have to find new ways of struggle which do not focus on 'leaders' and
> which won't result in them being expelled, replaced and finally
> victimised. Secondly a chronological summary based on two main-stream
> media articles.
>
> *** BPO union or another form of individualisation of call center
> workers
> Call Centres workers are under increasing attack due to the US
> recession, e.g. early November 2008 American Express announced to lay-
> off 150 workers employed in the Gurgaon call center. Apart from actual
> lay offs like there are other crisis related cuts going on, such as
> cancelled taxi service, cuts in wages or abolishment of free food
> offers. There haven't been many collective actions by call center
> workers during it's boom time, it will show whether they will manage
> to act up against job and wage cuts collectively. We document a non-
> collective form of conflict management in the form of the 'BPO Union'
> - a kind of online-initiative which acts on behalf of call center
> workers also in Gurgaon area, e.g. at IBM Daksh or Evalueserve.
>
> 3) According to Plan -
> General information on the development of the region or on certain
> company policies
>
> *** Global crisis hits Gurgaon
> Gurgaon, the global crisis hits on all fronts: in call centers and IT
> offices the jobs of 'Shining India' are cut and pillars of the major
> real estate and development projects shake, e.g. of India's biggest
> shopping mall and biggest Special Export Zone; only few months after
> several peasants were shot dead in NOIDA as a result of the struggle
> over SEZ land compensation, now these SEZ's in NOIDA and Gurgaon are
> for sale! The textile export industry face major mass lay-offs and the
> gears of the local automobile industry crunch. We summarised some
> newspaper articles from mid-November 2008. The question will be
> whether state and employers will manage to push the laid off workers
> back to where they came from - the impoverished parts of Bihar, West
> Bengal and UP - or whether workers will build strong enough ties
> amongst themselves in order to stay and reclaim the immense wealth and
> productive forces which became reason for their mass misery.
>
> *** Never use a needle, summary of study on local textile export
> industries
> In the last issues of GurgaonWorkersNews we published various short
> reports of workers employed in the local textile export industry.
> Currently the textile workers in India are threatened with mass lay
> offs due to the world recession. In the following we summarise a long
> study on the very same industry, first published in March 2007, in
> collaboration between 'United Students against Sweatshops', 'Jobs with
> Justice' and 'Society for Labour and Development'.
>
> The study focus on six major export manufacturers:
> -Modelama Exports Ltd.,
> -Shahi Exports Pvt. Ltd.,
> -Pearl Global Ltd., -Company G of Group R,
> -Orient Crafts Ltd.,
> -M/S Jyoti Apparels -
>
> The researchers interviewed company representatives of the upper
> management and in result got some valuable insight about:
> -The view of the management on the global and Indian textile market
> after the end of the trade quota in 2005
> -The relation-ship between textile manufacturers and the US and
> European clients, e.g. Wal Mart
> -The break down of production costs and profits
> -The increased use of machinery within the apparel sector
> -The work-force distribution amongst the different production
> departments and the wage and gender hierarchy
>
> 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.
>
>
> News from the Special Exploitation Zone -
> www.gurgaonworkersnews.wordpress.com
>
>