[Reader-list] Gujarat - A Report on the Workers’ Strike in Reliance Textile Industries, Naroda plant, Ahmedabad

[asit das]

 Gujarat - A Report on the Workers’ Strike in Reliance Textile Industries,
Naroda plant, Ahmedabad <http://sanhati.com/articles/4585/>

*February 8, 2012*

Highly exploitative wage structure and abysmal working conditions have led
the over 5000 workers to strike work in the primary manufacturing plant of
Reliance Textile Industries in Naroda, Gujarat, which is at a halt since
2nd February 2012. While the company posted its highest ever turnover of
over USD 44 billion and its net profit increased to USD 3.6 billion,
workers in the factory (‘dressing up India’ with ‘fabrics which make you
feel like a millionaire’ its website says) which started this empire’s
journey find their lives getting cheaper by the day. Spread over 120 acres
and with assets of over 300 crore, this plant in Naroda Industrial Estate,
located in a GIDC (Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation) near
Ahmedabad is India’s ‘most modern textile complex’ (according to the World
Bank) and Reliance’s first manufacturing facility set up by Dhirubhai
Ambani in 1966. Producing the ‘Only Vimal’ brand and housing sophisticated
machinery, it says it is ushering in ‘a new era in fabrics, include
suitings, shirtings, home textiles’.

But the skeletons in its closet are coming tumbling out, as the most of the
around 1100 permanent and 4000 contract workers assert their rights and
continue their strike which started from the second shift on 2nd February.
The company meanwhile responds with police deployment, intimidation, arrest
of workers’ leaders and a media campaign which says that the workers have
only been miffed for not being allowed to carry mobile phones inside the
factory. On the first day of the strike itself, Modi’s willing police
forced the striking workers away from the factory gate, and when they
assembled in the shamshanghat complex, around 20 minutes away, were forced
out of there too. Declaring the strike to be illegal, and arresting the
leaders, police has posted itself in the factory gate.

According to the workers, for last 20 years (when the company’s profits
increased ten-fold), the wages for the workers and karigars has more or
less been the same, whereas the salary of the staff increased many times.
While the permanent workers earn a paltry Rs. 5000-6000 per month, the
contract workers are paid Rs.85-100 per day. No legality of payment in
terms of pay slips etc. is maintained, only a voucher is signed. Overtime
is paid in single rate, while strict surveillance is maintained and late
entry is severely punished. For the last 20-25 years, two anti-worker
unions have been there in the plant. One is ‘Majdoor Mahajan’, the union
that was originally established by M. K. Gandhi after the Bombay textile
strike in the 1920s and has many unions across Gujarat, and the other is
‘Mill Mazdoor Sabha’, affiliated to the Hind Mazdoor Sabha. The workers,
fed up of both these Unions’ corrupt practices, say how they act as
“extended office of the management”. Every three years, a settlement is
brokered between these two Unions’ officials and the management, but
workers are kept out of it and do not even get to know of the deal
brokered. No notice is put up. Four years back, both these Unions even
agreed to accept that there will be no recess hour for the workers to have
tea. So the workers were henceforth forced to have tea on the way to the
bathroom, and in the location of work in an unhygienic and dirty
atmosphere, so that work is not disturbed and time ‘better managed’.

Workers strongly emphasise that the reason for the strike is not as the
popular media reporting and management statements on it goes, that of the
prohibition of mobile phone inside the factory. It is only to delegitimize
their struggle, that they are sought to being portrayed as flippant, lazy,
like the recent struggle in Yanam was decried as being done by anarchist
‘killer workers’, or how the Maruti Suzuki struggle was sought to be
portrayed as ‘innocent young workers under the sway of outside elements’.

The demands and the inhuman working conditions from which they have arisen
are clear to the workers. Even as the company site says that it ‘endeavours
to create a workplace where every person can realise his or her full
potential’, the workers specifically stress on the abusive language of the
management staff. Though they have raised their demands again and again
earlier, the workers now organized as Reliance Employees Union submitted a
16-point demand list to the management again during the strike, which
include a 60% hike in wages and regularization of contract workers, besides
double rate overtime, a 20% increase in bonus, increase of daily wage of
contract workers to Rs. 200 per day, renewal of fixed salary system,
uniform rights for wage board, tea-snacks in the canteen, no fine for 10
minute late entry, to fill accident forms according to procedure, an end to
harassment of workers, and an assurance that striking workers will not be
fired and no deduction of wage for the strike period is made.

[image: strike-demands-1.jpg]<http://sanhati.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/strike-demands-1.jpg>
[image:
strike-demands-2.jpg]<http://sanhati.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/strike-demands-2.jpg>

*Figure 1. Scanned copies of the list of demands*

Disregarding all these demands, the management apart from the
disinformation campaign, has resorted to police force, arrest and
intimidation on the striking workers and their leaders, and are now
bringing in temporary workers from outside, paying them Rs. 400-500 per
day, to show that the plant is running, though at much below its capacity.
Continuing with their anti-worker stance, both the pro-management Unions
were against the strike, but the majority of the workers emphasized the
strong unity among striking workforce. “We have formed a new union named
‘Reliance Employees Union. The strike will go on till our demands are met”,
said Hasmukh Patel, President of the new Union. The workers’ complete
disillusionment and anger against Narendra Modi and his ‘vibrant Gujarat
development model’, and against the Reliance management is becoming more
and more evident, from their own experiences. Sagar Patil, a striking
worker, said, “With 9.5 crore, the money we produced, Nita Ambani bought an
IPL team. They are making jalsa with our money, but it pains them to even
part a few thousands to us who produce.” No trade union, or political group
or even the huge number of ‘humanist’ organizations in Gujarat have even
made a single statement in favour of the workers till now, but the striking
workers continue with their struggle.

———————————–

*The following is a tentative translation of the list of demands as spelled
out in the Gujarati pamphlets posted above * -

Reliance Employees Union
Reliance Industries Limited, GIDC
In front of Petrol Pump, Near Raj Pan Centre, Naroda, Ahmedabad

Subject: Demand for Workers Rights

* Total current salary to be increased 60% according to grade.
* Make *badli* workers permanent on the basis of seniority
* Increase salary even if days less than 240; Increase salary according to
grade
* Implement fixed salary system
* Give double overtime
* Give tea-snacks in the canteen
* Agreement salary should be given
* Give 20% bonus
* Begin 10-minute late entry
* Fill accident forms according to procedure
* No employee should be harassed in future
* Workers involved in strike will not be fired.
* Dissolve the worker *mahajan* and their *sabhas*. All workers do not
approve of these unions.
* Give all workers working in contract Rs 200 according to 8 hours work
* The loss of working days *haziri* during strike should be remitted.
* Give written acceptance of all these demands.