Just what is it like to be a contract worker in India’s burgeoning automotive sector?
Without first hand evidence it’s difficult from the UK to take a wholly considered view, but anecdotal evidence suggests the temporary worker’s lot is not altogether a happy one.
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There is nothing to suggest the recent and extreme violence meted out at Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar plant was provoked by contract workers, but a powerful trade union body has used the occasion to highlight what it says is the plight of Indian temporary labour, which often lives in appalling conditions and is paid a pittance to boot.
Here’s a snapshot from All India Trades Union Congress national secretary, Darshan Sachdev, speaking to just-auto from India today (3 August) about contract workers. “They are living – if you go and see their living conditions – eight to ten workers just in one room,” he said.
“The rent is very high so even if the worker gets [monthly] around INR6,000 (US$108) he may have to spend INR1,500 as house rent – it is not subsidised. [Sometimes] They don’t have proper toilet facilities and some of them don’t even have toilets and sanitation.
“It is a shabbily-built house with meagre facilities – we have been demanding housing facilities for workers. We say when you are developing industrial areas, simultaneously you consider providing housing.”
What also irks the AITUC is that the position of contract workers appears to be so much worse than their full-time counterparts, with some companies hiring and firing at will, not providing any transport for their temporary staff and letting them work extremely long hours for a fraction of normal pay.
“They [contract workers] are first engaged for six months and after that, they are taken off and another batch will come,” said Sachdev. “They can’t claim regularisation because according to Indian law, if workers work for 240 days in a year, they should be made regular, so contractors such as Maruti don’t allow them to do 240 days.
“It is not only Maruti but most of these employers don’t allow them to complete job [s] continuously. The contract workers are aware of that, but if you look at the employment situation, if he gets something [work], he may be aware, he may not be aware, but he has no other choice because of unemployment.”
Something has to have triggered a mob to storm through the Manesar plant in an arson attack that left the human resources manager dead and a hundred staff in hospital, but the source of the huge unrest remains unclear.
What is more clear is Manesar has been a hotbed of industrial unrest for some considerable time, subject to mass union unrest and although Maruti management has condemned the recent violence in the strongest terms, it has been less vocal as to the reasons why its staff reacted so violently.
Something was the catalyst and sitting here in the UK, thousands of miles away, it’s tricky to pinpoint it, but again, how are those contract workers, of which there must be a considerable number in India, treated?
Maruti is preferring to concentrate on the terrifying violence of two weeks ago, but nonetheless told just-auto today there would be no further contract workers as of now staffing the direct manufacturing process until next year, confirming fears expressed earlier by the AITUC. “We have heard they will not keep contract workers in core activities.”
Maruti confirmed around 1,500 of its 3,000 strong workforce are on contract, but that it observed the rules in place on working agreements when it came to the 240 days. “Whatever is the law [s] of the land, these are defined,” said the Maruti spokesman.
“A contract worker is a contract worker. He is not a regular employee by the nature of his work profile. If you need contingencies and more than that – it is a business that fluctuates with the market – with the available manpower.”
The manufacturer also took the opportunity to vigorously defend its treatment of workers insisting to just-auto: “The alibi there are six people in a room and no toilets – that is only talking.
“Realistically, someone should come here and look at the facilities that are provided to the workforce in Maruti. They would be amazed.”
So, much talk on both sides and as ever, almost impossible to understand the contract workers’ lot from so far away.
But if the unions are right and temporary staff earn just a shade more than $100 per month, a quarter of which goes on rent and work very long shifts, how far does that go in northern India? Maybe it goes a long way, maybe it doesn’t.
But if Maruti is typical and employs half its workforce on contract terms – albeit with what appears to be an immediate moratorium until next year – how many OEMs and suppliers also benefit from that cheap labour and do they have a view?
Come to think of it, how many of us in the West are sitting here in clothes made in India, Pakistan or south east Asia, that are equally the result of incredibly labour-intensive and cheap workers toiling for a few dollars a day?
Would we be prepared to pay, say, 20% more so those workers could earn a reasonable wage? Would Indian consumers equally fork out more to ease the lot of their fellow countrymen?
“I have seen myself [living conditions] because I have been going to that area [northern India industrial belt] for a long time,” said Sachdev. “There are different types of colonies.
“I have seen that situation with five to six workers staying in one room – that is a common feature – otherwise they can’t afford the high rent. For him [worker] living in a city in urban areas, the rent will be even higher.”
Caught between a rock and a hard place, the Indian contract worker has to take the work doesn’t he? But does that mean he has to take those living conditions too?
