Over 130 nurses employed in Sharda Hospital in Greater Noida/NCR have been on strike since 12.05.2012 (Saturday) against rampant violation of their basic rights. On an average most of the nurses on strike have been working in the hospital for three to four years, but have received minimal or no salary increments since the date of joining. As of today, majority of the GNM staff (general nurse and midwife) and B.Sc. qualified nurses are receiving the paltry sum of Rs. 7000/- to Rs. 8000/- only. There are, of course, some GNM nurses who receive just Rs. 5000. “There is absolutely no regulation on the salary scale because it all depends on the mood of the authorities—if they like our face they give us a little more, and if they don’t like our looks they pay us less,” said one of the nurses. Interestingly, in order to conceal their outright exploitation of the nurses, the Sharda management refuses to release payslips for the nurses’ salary.
Neither are the nurses paid for the overtime work they are made to perform on a regular basis. In fact, in complete violation of the Employee’ Provident Fund Act and Rules, the Sharda management is not even depositing PF or maintaining the PF records. As in government hospitals where special allowances are released, the nurses of Sharda do not receive such payments/allowance for special duties in ICU, OT, etc., which is another example of how the nurses’ basic rights are being violated by the hospital. Apart from PF, the hospital even denies its nursing staff something as basic as ESI or free treatment, vaccinations, etc.
The striking nurses also highlighted how the less qualified nurses, i.e. ANM staff (auxiliary nurse and midwife) were receiving higher salaries (to the tune of Rs. 16000 and above) compared to the GNM staff (general nurse and midwife), due to the unhealthy practice of nepotism and favouritism exercised by the Sharda management. In fact, the nepotism has reached such an extent that the post of nursing superintendent, which is supposed to be assigned to a M.Sc. qualified nurse, has been allotted to a GNM qualified nurse by the hospital management. “This might just seem like a small technical point to some, but this is a stipulation specified by the Medical Council of India. Its violation is putting patients at serious risk because the nursing superintendent is inept when it comes to guiding the nursing team under her,” explained one of the striking nurses. According to the striking nurses the list of norms violated by the Sharda management is endless. In complete violation of the Clinical Establishment Act, the hospital is replacing the striking nurses with untrained staff and nursing students from their attached school of nursing.
The nurses of Sharda hospital are also fighting against the inhuman work load they are forced to adhere to. On an average, in the general ward, two nurses are assigned to 45 patients. Again, in complete violation of the World Health Organization’s(WHO) norms of one nurse to one or two ICU patients, in Sharda hospital one nurse is assigned up to four ICU patients—a workload which compromises the quality of patient care a nurse can perform. Due to massive shortage of attendant staff, the nurses are regularly compelled to perform duties which are outside their prescribed nursing duties. Furthermore, in an extremely authoritative manner, the Sharda management denies the nurses sufficient leave. Most of the time the nurses are provided only 3 to 5 days leave and that too after submitting a whole host of documentation. “It is alarming how the management expects nurses from places like Kerela to reach their hometown, spend time at home and be back for duty in just three days,” highlighted one of the striking nurses. Some of the married female nurses explained that it was only with the greatest of difficulty that they could avail of two months maternity leave—an act which is a serious violation of the prescribed labour law pertaining to maternity leave.
Unfortunately, instead of helping create conducive conditions for collective bargaining and amicable negotiation, the local administration and police is intervening in a manner which reflects their connivance with the Sharda management. For example, the local police have refused to accept written complaints of the female nurses who wish to complain against the fact that bouncers employed by the hospital keep entering their hostel at night. In fact, the Sharda management has been using the local police to intimidate the striking nurses. On one hand the management refuses to appear for negotiation at the Deputy Labour Commissioner’s office, and on the other, they arm-twist the nurses by putting up eviction notices inside the hostel. The problem, however, is not just that the Deputy Labour Commissioner of Noida has failed to get the management to the negotiating table, or, that the entire local administration has failed to create amicable conditions for negotiation. The crux of the problem is that the state has created no proper and comprehensive legislation to protect the rights of the nursing community.
Meanwhile, the situation with respect to the nurses’ strike in Faridabad remained tense. Negotiations continue to remain inconclusive while intimidation continues.
Maya John
Centre For Struggling Women (CSW)
Mob: 9350272637
AS NEGOTIATIONS FAIL, STRIKING NURSES TAKE OUT MASSIVE PROTEST RALLY IN FARIDABAD & BLOCK B.K. CHOWK
HOSPITAL MANAGEMENT INSTALLS PHONE JAMMERS INSIDE THE HOSTEL TO INTIMIDATE STRIKING NURSES
PATIENTS HEALTH IN PERIL AS UNTRAINED NURING STAFF & NURSING STUDENTS ARE BROUGHT IN AS REPLACEMENTS
The nurses of Asian Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS), Faridabad and QRG Central Hospital continue to sit on strike for the NINTH consecutive day. Since the management of AIMS hospital is determined not to increase the pay of the nurses, and not to reduce their work load by removing compulsory double duty, negotiations held with the AIMS management on 14.05.2012 failed. While the next round of negotiations is still pending in the case of QRG Central hospital, the chances of the QRG management conceding some of the main demands of the nurses’ is doubtful.
In order to build larger public pressure on the hospitals’ management as well as the district administration of Faridabad, the striking nurses of both hospitals took out a big rally from BT Chowk. There they blocked the roads surrounding the Chowk for nearly two hours till they were given the assurance that the District Commissioner will meet them in person on the 16th. The nurses’ rally was supported by trade unions in Faridabad, women’s organizations, welfare associations, several civil rights groups, and democratic and progressive individuals. Meanwhile, the two hospitals concerned kept up the façade of “normal” functioning by replacing the striking nurses with untrained nursing staff and nursing students—a measure which is putting patients at serious risk.
The striking nurses have continuously complained about the uncooperative approach of the district and labour administration. They argue that the district administration and labour office was intervening in a manner which reflects their connivance with the hospitals’ management. In the case of QRG Central, the civil court ordered that the peaceful demonstration of the striking nurses be shifted to a distance of 200 meters to an inconspicuous and distant location. Interestingly, the law allows for only 100 meters distance. In the case of both hospitals, the local officials are preventing the nurses from putting up a tent structure to protect themselves from the heat.
As expected, with each day the harassment by the hospitals’ management escalates. On the night of 14.05.2012 when AIMS nurses returned to their hostel after their ninth day of strike, they found jammers installed inside their hostel. Because of the device the nurses could not make or receive calls for several hours. Suspecting foul play they called the police and pushed for an inspection of a vacant, locked room where the felt the jammer was installed. Initially, the police was reluctant to remove the device due to pressure from the management, but then finally because all the nurses pressed for action, the jammer was finally removed at 10pm,” said an agitated nurse of AIMS hospital. Today (15.05.2012), the security staff of the hospital removed the water cooler installed in the hostel, hence, depriving the nurses of drinking water. Security personnel/bouncers hired by the hospitals are continuously entering the women’s hostels, and coercing individual nurses to join back. “A nurse who was recuperating from an attack of serious illness was continuously mentally pressurized by the hospital’s nursing supervisor who kept calling her on the phone—something which worsened her condition,” said another agitated nurse.
Considering the hostile atmosphere, the nurses of both AIMS and QRG Central hospitals have decided to form a Joint Action Committee (JAC) so as to unite nurses of all the different hospitals in Faridabad. Considering that conditions continue to be grave, the nurses resorted to a larger public campaign. During their rally they distributed pamphlets explaining to the general public how their strike was in favour of better patient care.
Thankamma Ravindran
Delhi Nurses Welfare Association
Alok Kumar
Workers Unity Centre
Maya John
Centre For Struggling Women
Ph: 9350272637
DESPITE SEVERE HARASSMENT AND BEING MANHANDLED BY BOUNCERS, NURSES CONTINUE TO SIT ON STRIKE
WATER & ELECTRICITY SUPPLY CUT OFF IN THE NURSES’ HOSTEL ACCOMMODATION
IMPACT OF STRIKE SPREADS TO OTHER HOSPITALS
The nurses of Asian Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS), Faridabad and QRG Central Hospital continue to sit on strike for the eighth consecutive day. With each day the harassment by the hospitals’ management escalates. Nevertheless, the nurses continue to sit on strike. Today, bouncers hired by the AIMS management manhandled nurses who were passing by the hospital on the way to their hostel accommodation. When activists from the women’s organization, Centre for Struggling Women (CSW) and Workers’ Unity Centre of India (WUCI) intervened, the bouncers tried to manhandle them too and used filthy, abusive language in order to intimidate the nurses. The local police initially intervened in favour of the bouncers but when accosted with the fact that the road outside the hospital is public property and cannot be regulated by the bouncers, the police accepted the bouncers were harassing the nurses.
Similar tactics of intimidation are being used in the hostels where the nurses reside. Water and electricity supply in the hostels are often cut off, and the nurses are threatened every day to vacate their rooms. Despite the fact that the management of both AIMS and QRG Central have called for negotiation today, intimidation and threats continue in order to force the striking nurses to settle fast. These acts are, hence, in complete violation of the spirit of amicable negotiation and the spirit of collective bargaining.
Unfortunately, even the district administration and labour office is intervening in a manner which reflects their connivance with the hospitals’ management. In the case of QRG Central, the civil court ordered that the peaceful demonstration of the striking nurses be shifted to a distance of 200 meters to an inconspicuous and distant location. Interestingly, the law allows for only 100 meters distance. And in the case of both hospitals, the local officials are preventing the nurses from putting up a tent structure to protect themselves from the heat.
Considering the hostile atmosphere, the nurses of both AIMS and QRG Central hospitals have decided to form a Joint Action Committee (JAC) so as to unite nurses of all the different hospitals in Faridabad. Considering that conditions continue to be grave, the nurses are also considering holding a JOINT PROTEST outside the office of the Deputy Labour Commissioner in Faridabad, and the Union Health Minister. “If the negotiations will not go in favour of the striking nurses then the nurses are thinking of taking out a big rally in Faridabad, and uniting nurses across the board. After all, negotiation doesn’t mean settle for less,” said CSW activist, Maya John. Interestingly, the nurses’ strikes in Faridabad are already impacting the functioning of other private hospitals in the NCR. For example, nurses of Sharda Hospital in Greater Noida have also gone on strike with respect to demands for pay hike, regulated work hours, etc.
Thankamma Ravindran
Delhi Nurses Welfare Association
Alok Kumar
Workers Unity Centre
Maya John
Centre For Struggling Women
Ph: 9350272637
NURSES OF PRIVATE HOSPITALS IN FARIDABAD ON WAR PATH, & TAKE OUT A RALLY AROUND FARIDABAD
NURSES of ASIAN HOSPITAL SIT ON HUNGER STRIKE ON THE OCCASION OF INTERNATIONAL NURSES’ DAY
The nurses of Asian Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS), Faridabad and QRG Central Hospital continue to sit on strike for the sixth consecutive day. Since 6 days have passed and no fruitful negotiation seems in sight, the nurses of Asian Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) decided to commemorate International Nurses’ Day by sitting on hunger strike, rather than celebrating the most important day of their profession with fanfare. The striking nurses of AIMS also took out a large rally from outside the hospital to Badhkal Chowk and HUDA Market. By going on hunger strike and taking out such a rally, the nurses’ have tried to expose how the nursing profession is treated in the medical community and society at large. On the hand, the management of both hospitals refuse to negotiate on the nurses’ just demands, although patients are vacating the hostel in panic, leading to huge financial loss. Following their meeting on Nurses’ Day, the nurses of both AIMS and QRG Central hospitals have decided to form a Joint Action Committee (JAC) so as to unite nurses of all the different hospitals in Faridabad. Considering that conditions continue to be grave, the nurses have also started to think along the lines of holding a JOINT PROTEST outside the office of the Deputy Labour Commissioner in Faridabad.
As of now the nurses of AIMS are paid a paltry sum of Rs. 11,000 from which the hospital management cuts PF, etc. Due to this the nurses get only some Rs. 9000 in hand—an amount which is way below the Rs. 42,000 earned by government hospital nurses. In the case of QRG Central hospital, many nurses are getting even less than their colleagues in AIMS (Faridabad). In both hospitals the nurses’ salaries are inflated on paper by including a vague category called Company Total Cost/CTC (which includes PF, gratuity, ESI health-card fee, etc.). The actual salary received in hand/basic salary is, of course, much lower than what is officially declared by the management on paper. In fact, the hospitals conveniently fool hapless nurses into work contracts by projecting higher salaries on paper. When asked to explain the exact functioning of the CTC, management of private hospitals across the board deny any proper explanation.
In Delhi and NCR region where rents are high, such salaries hardly enable the nurses to make ends meet. It is shocking that hospitals which earn huge profits on a yearly basis are unwilling to reward their nursing staff a fair wage and regular salary increments. While addressing the striking nurses, activists from the women’s organization, Centre For Struggling Women (CSW), Workers’ Unity Centre (WUCI), and Nurses Welfare Association encouraged the nurses to stand by their genuine demands like hiking the basic salary released, and paying the nurses salaries which hare in parity with those of government hospital nurses. CSW member also encouraged the nurses to unite the larger nursing community on the demand for a wage-board. The wage board would ensure some regulation of the salaries paid in private hospitals.
The other grave problem highlighted by the striking nurses is the manner in which they are assigned extra duties for which they are not paid adequately. For example, after performing eight hours of duty, the nurses are often forced to perform another 8 hours of duty. Furthermore, the aforementioned private hospitals exercise a skewed nurse-to-patient ratio. In violation of the World Health Organization’s norms, the nurses in Asian Hospital (AIMS) are assigned up to 3 to 4 ICU patients (the WHO recommended ratio being 1 nurse to 1 or 2 ICU patients). And after performing double duties back to back, the nurses do not receive compensation based on given rules on overtime payment. The nurses of QRG Central hospital explained how, in violation with laws pertaining to overtime payment, the management pays them even less than the normal duty’s rate for the additional 6-8 hours shift performed by them.
What is most disturbing is the way in which the issue of the striking nurses are being skirted continuously. For example, despite being intimated of the nurses’ issues, the Deputy Labour Commissioner and Labour Office have failed to intervene. Even after communicating their demands to the Chief Minister, no intervention or probe by the CM’s office has followed, thereby once again exposing the pro-management stance of the Haryana Government. As expected, the local thana has been actively involved in harassing the young nurses, and has forcefully pushed the strikers to from putting up a tent even at a distance of the stipulated 100 meters issued via a court order. Of course, seeing the nurses’ determination to continue their struggle, the Deputy Labour Commissioner’s (DL) office has suddenly swung into force. However, the nurses have complained that the DL has only been verbally threatening them than amicably trying to arbitrate between the two parties. The connivance between the Deputy Labour Commissioner and the management of QRG Central hospital has, in fact, ensured that the striking nurses are forced to sit far away (200 meters distance) from the hospital whereas the rule is generally 100 meters only. This reflects both the state administration and hospital management’s desire to conceal the genuine issues of the nurses from the patients and larger public.
Furthermore, the management of AIMS and QRG Hospital has resorted to several illegal practices like replacing the striking nurses with nursing students who are not qualified to practice, and by making ward attendants perform certain nursing duties like applying injections to sick patients. This measure is not only illegal but also detrimental to the interests of the admitted patients. In addition to this the hospital management of AIMS has also indulged in filthy practices like sending bouncers late at night to the nurses’ hostel on 8th May. Today on 11th morning, again certain senior hospital staff in AIMS forcefully dragged three nurses into the hospital. The three nurses, however, refused to stay and left the hospital shortly to join their striking colleagues. In the evening bouncers hired by the hospital kept encircling the striking nurses in their vehicle. Four of the bouncers again entered the nurses’ hostel on 11th evening and took photographs of the nurses inside the hostel. Worried about their safety and unsure of the extent to which the bouncers will go, the nurses submitted a written complaint at the local police station.
Standing up to the various intimidation tactics of the hospitals’ management, the nurses of both hospitals have decided to continue their strike till all the striking nurses are re-employed. With nothing to lose, the nurses are standing together in unity.
Thankamma Ravindran
Delhi Nurses Welfare Association
Lailamma Peter
Delhi Nurses Welfare Association
Alok Kumar
Workers Unity Centre
Maya John
Centre For Struggling Women
Ph: 9350272637
Note: This is an updated version of the release that was published earlier.
NURSES OF FARIDABAD ON WAR PATH
RAMPANT EXPOITATION OF MALYALI NURSES
PRIVATE HOSPITALS INDULGE IN A RANGE OF ILLEGAL PRACTICES
Following a 14 day strike notice, 300 nurses of Asian Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS), Faridabad have been sitting on strike since 7th May. Down the road, 140 nurses of another private hospital, QRG Central Hospital are also on strike. The majority of these nurses are from far flung parts of Kerela, and have joined the super-speciality hospital in the hope of earning salaries which will help them survive in the city, and also assist them in paying back education loans they have taken to pursue their nursing degrees. Unfortunately, like other private hospitals, Asian Hospital and QRG Central are misusing the nurses’ compulsion to pay off student loans to employ them on the basis of extremely low wages.
As of now the nurses of AIMS are paid a paltry sum of Rs. 11,000 from which the hospital management cuts PF, etc. Due to this the nurses get only some Rs. 9000 in hand—an amount which is way below the Rs. 42,000 earned by government hospital nurses. Ironically, this salary package has been in force since the inception of the hospital, i.e. for two and a half years. The nurses, hence, complained that despite putting in loyal service from the time of the hospital’s inception, their experience and hard work has not led to any pay hike. In the case of QRG Central hospital, many nurses are getting even less than their colleagues in AIMS (Faridabad).
In Delhi and NCR region where rents are high, such salaries hardly enable the nurses to make ends meet. It is shocking that hospitals which earn huge profits on a yearly basis are unwilling to reward their nursing staff a fair wage and regular salary increments. In fact, several private hospitals like AIMS have gone to the extent of deliberately forcing a section of the nurses to join as trainees from the first date of their service. The trainees are then conveniently paid wages as low as Rs 5000, despite the fact that they are fully qualified nurses who do not need to undergo any sort of “apprenticeship/training”. While addressing the striking nurses, activists from the women’s organization, Centre For Struggling Women (CSW), Workers’ Unity Centre (WUCI), and Nurses Welfare Association congratulated the nurses for risking everything and coming out to fight on their demands. The CSW member argued that the nurses’ salaries should be increased regularly on the basis of the hospital’s profit margin, and that a wage-board should be constituted for the nursing occupation. The wage board would ensure some regulation of the salaries paid in private hospitals.
The other grave problem highlighted by the striking nurses is the manner in which they are assigned extra duties for which they are not paid adequately. For example, after performing eight hours of duty, the nurses are often forced to perform another 8 hours of duty. “Imagine what kind of patient-care we can do when we are on our feet for 16 hours straight”, explained one of the striking nurses (who requested anonymity). The management of private hospitals find it easy to arm-twist the nurses for double duties due to the simple fact that nurses are desperate to pay off student loans, and because of the sheer clout private capital exercises in the health sector. With private hospitals outnumbering government ones, the managements of private hospitals find it easy to keep wages low across the board, and to overwork the nurses in the absence of government regulation. With little difference in the wage scales prevalent in private hospitals, most nurses are unable to challenge the adverse conditions of their employment. Furthermore, the aforementioned private hospitals exercise a skewed nurse-to-patient ratio. In violation of the World Health Organization’s norms, the nurses in Asian Hospital (AIMS) are assigned up to 3 to 4 ICU patients (the WHO recommended ratio being 1 nurse to 1 or 2 ICU patients). “And even after performing double duties back to back, we don’t receive adequate compensation,” said another AIMS nurse.
What is most disturbing is the way in which the issue of the striking nurses are being skirted continuously. For example, despite being intimated of the nurses’ issues, the Deputy Labour Commissioner and Labour Office have failed to intervene. Even after communicating their demands to the Chief Minister, no intervention or probe by the CM’s office has followed, thereby once again exposing the pro-management stance of the Haryana Government. As expected, the local thana has been actively involved in harassing the young nurses, and has forcefully pushed the strikers to a distance beyond the stipulated 100 meters issued via a court order. As usual the state machinery is quick to respond to the calls and communiques of the hospitals’ management, and lethargic, if not, aggressively anti the worker when contacted by affected workers.
Furthermore, the management of AIMS has resorted to several illegal practices like replacing the striking nurses with nursing students who are not qualified to practice. This measure is not only illegal but also detrimental to the interests of the admitted patients. In addition to this the hospital management has also indulged in filthy practices like sending bouncers late at night to the nurses’ hostel on 8th May. The authorities have also put up notices with the names of some 70 nurses who are supposed to vacate the hostel with immediate effect. The management has so far suspended 16 nurses and terminated the services of 12. While the management has given a verbal assurance of reinstating the nurses who have been suspended and terminated, it has categorically refused to reemploy 5 nurses on whom they have slapped legal cases. These 5 nurses have been the more active and vocal participants of the struggle. Clearly then, rather than negotiating with the nurses, the Asian Hospital management seems adamant in crushing the legitimate voice of the young Malyali nurses. Meanwhile, the Director of the QRG Central Hospital continues to scoff at the demands for a pay hike by his nursing staff. He has gone on record stating that the nurses behave “like cattle and don’t use their brains” when deciding about whether to sit on strike! As usual he overplayed the role of “outsiders”, whom he claims “misguide the nurses to agitate”.
Standing up to the various intimidation tactics of the hospitals’ management, the nurses of both hospitals have decided to continue their strike till all the striking nurses are re-employed. With nothing to lose, the nurses are standing together in unity.
Thankamma Ravindran
Delhi Nurses Welfare Association
Lailamma Peter
Delhi Nurses Welfare Association
Alok Kumar
Workers Unity Centre
Maya John
Centre For Struggling Women
Ph: 9350272637
From the filth and dirt of the cities of the present, emerges a shriek of revolt. Liberal society based on inequality squirms, and tries desperately to take contain it and dole out relief. The people asserting their power and dignity of labour persist with the question—who controls access to urban resources and who dictates the quality and organization of daily life. Is it the financiers and developers, or the people?
Nonadanga, in the eastern fringes of Kolkata in West Bengal, has brought this question again starkly to the foreground which is being posed everywhere. In this area, lie several slums with thousands of households, housing a population of few belongings and only their capacity to labour and dignity in hand. The bulldozers of the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) with brute Police force burnt and razed the houses in Mazdoor Pally and Shramik Colony to the ground on 30 March 2012 in the name of ‘emptying the land’. This prime land including water bodies in and around Nonadanga of 80 acres is to be handed over to developers of ‘star/budget hotels, shopping malls, multiplexes, restaurants, serviced apartments, recreational facilities’. If the 80 acre project materializes, another 1000 odd houses are in line to be demolished. The legal and parliamentary channels had already been close to exhausted before this round of evictions. Peaceful marches by residents under the banner of the local autonomous Ucched Pratirodh Committee (Resistance-to-Eviction Committee) on 1 and 4 April, sit-in demonstration on 8 April and many agitations were organized, appeals were made. The government responded with allusions of Nonadanga being a place where ‘outsiders are inciting’ and ‘stockpiling arms and ammunitions’. Kolkata Police resorted to brutal lathicharge on a protest rally on 4 April, and many suffered severe injuries including children and pregnant women. On 8 April the committe decided to go for a road-side sit-in-demonstration and police was intimated accordingly. But within an hour police force mobilised and picked up 69 residents and activists, later among them 62 were released but seven activists continue to languish under many charges ranging from ‘assaulting public servant in the execution of his duty’ to ‘anti-national activities’ (5 of them were released on bail after about two weeks imprisonment). Then continued series of mass protests and subsequent arrests, and alongwith we witnessed attack on APDR rally by TMC goons. On 28 April, after the confrontation of residents with police over the blocking of the entry-exit points with a boundary wall by the KMDA, 11 residents including 5 women were arrested and slapped with a host of cases, and were put into police custody. The threat of further repression through legal and illegal channels looms large.
Who are the residents of Nonadanga?
An area meant for rehabilitation for evictees from various canal banks and slums across Kolkata, Nonadanga is crowded with single roomed flats of 160 sq ft, which were distributed to these evictees with many anomalies. The ‘rehabilitation’ did not contain schools, health centers or markets. Later more and more evicted and forcedly migrated people from the crisis in the rural areas, majorly from Sunderbans after Aila, started to come here and build their homes as they thought that the land stipulated for rehabilitation would be the last one where jaws of eviction could reach. Having pushed here thus, the people of Nonadanga are employed in various small-scale industries, in petty production and many are unemployed workers. Some in the garment industry, some in the ‘Kasba Industrial Estate’ nearby, some in other small factories of the subcontractors of big industrial houses. A large number of people work as construction workers and contract workers in various places. Many are auto-drivers, rickshaw-pullers, van-pullers, drivers of personal or official cars. Many people are self-employed in small roadside shops of food, tailoring, mobile-recharge, grocery and majority of women are employed as domestic-helps. The question of living wages in such a situation is one of the most important. Linked to that, the quality of living condition is horrible to say the least and the struggle to reproduce everyday life is rife with insecurity. Struggle over shelter and rent, added with worries over water and sanitation constantly plague the people. These insecurities also play out into internal divisions over the struggle for scant resources.
As in each and every urban concentration across India, they bear with them the marks of the violent process of development both in the rural and urban areas. And this pain and their function in the chain of capitalist production is their strength and power. In the villages, they have seen their debts with the landed elite and prices of agricultural inputs soar, the pesticides ruin the nutrition of their soil, even caste related atrocities jump in number, and have been thrown out unceremoniously as companies pounce on their resources. They bear with them the crisis in the urban areas where huge ‘industrial model towns’ have no mention of workers housing even in the grand ‘master plans’, where workers are being pushed daily into selling the endless days and nights of labour even cheaper. With no proper housing, they are pushed into residing in rented dormitories and slums where the state has wilfully withdrawn from all its responsibilities. The working classes are thus ‘legally’ handed over to networks of the local elites and goons (who are hand in glove with the local police, the company owners in the nearby industrial estates, the political party in power or parliamentary opposition) who impose exorbitant rent and user charges on any service that is provided. All this comes under the rubric of ‘illegality’, and the pitching of the people as encroachers. To manage this, the system also has in place several welfare programs and NGOs who act as middlemen, ‘service providers’, ‘consultancy groups’ to delink the struggle in the rural and the urban, the factory/workplace and the household, and push the struggle only into litigation and as a question of lack of rule of law. Integrated in the global networks of capital, cheap labour has to be ensured for the ruling class by constant regulation—by the force of law, by the police and by the ameliorate benevolence of the NGOs.
Exposing the present model of ‘development’
There is nothing surprising about eviction and repression as everywhere in India, and across the world, cities are restructured to suit the needs of capital accumulation, as the attack of neoliberal capital intensifies. In the resistance in Nonadanga is seen an active process of exposing the linkage between exploitation and state repression—both of which defines the fabric of ‘normalcy’ and ‘development’. The residents of Nonadanga formed an independent organization without links to the Trinamool or CPI(M) or any of the standard vote-shops, and asserted their power without relying on the NGOs either. This has been possible, even in the face of their weak economic condition and other insecurities, because of their will and the presence of struggling left revolutionary forces from much before this present agitation started—who are working in coordination during the struggle. Even after all the houses were demolished, the residents refused to budge from the site, put up shelters, ran a community kitchen, and are confronting the might of the police everyday with their bare hands and indomitable will. Since 11 April, 10 comrades under this Ucched Pratirodh Committee persisted with a fast-unto-death in the site for 12 days with undeterred support of the entire slum, and beyond. Fighting the might of the developers and the state, they have reconstructed almost all the burnt and demolished houses, and are preparing to face further assaults from the government, like the boundary wall being constructed by the KMDA and constant threat of further violence by the police, and TMC goons. A local school here, during the present agitation, has been turned into a police camp. However, even in the face of this, some initiatives in education, ecology, health camps are stirring to imagine a different vision of development, even as the state is sought to be held responsible and answerable to their demands. The built makeshift houses stand for now, but so do the demands for proper housing.
The residents continue to demand unconditional dropping of charges against the arrested activists and residents. That without ‘organisational prejudice’, 7 activists of various mass organisations were arrested on 8 April, and then again 11 residents of the area have been arrested on 28 April, shows that whoever raises a voice against the developmental terrorism of capital, without exception, will be crushed. The illusions of justice by the government, police, administration, and judiciary are daily breaking, coming face to face with them in the arena of struggle. The TMC and CPI(M) of the Singurs and Rajarhats have been exposed as lapdogs of the land sharks and company mafia. The state has been forced into retreat after confrontation—the government has been forced to grant bail to the 7 arrested activists (though 2 of them are still in jail) and make promises (albeit temporary) not to go into further evictions. The solidarity campaign by revolutionary left forces and mass organizations in different places also got energized into thinking, debating and linking the ongoing struggles against similar processes in own specific locations. In cases of local resistance, not only did the general process of capitalist restructuring of cities and resistance as the only way to confront it come up again, but thinking around questions of forms of resistance and organization within the struggle are also showing itself.
Beyond anti-Mamata-ism, and the empty discourse of (il)legality
During the ongoing struggle, we have witnessed repeated attempts to not only repress the movement, but at the same time to depoliticize and divert it as an ideological offensive by the ruling class. Even the solidarity campaign when picked up by the civil society, the NGOs, the national media or a organization like SFI focused on (a) anti-Mamata Banerjeeism, (b) depoliticized appeal to push the release of the ‘eminent scientist, harmless national asset’, Partho Sarathi Ray, and (c) relief to the ‘helpless slumdwellers’, without challenging the discourse of (il)legality.
There is at present, a seemingly anti-Mamata Banerjee wave. From the huge uproar over the arrest of a JU professor over a anti-Mamata cartoon to the ‘don’t talk to CPI(M) members diktat’ around the same time, the corporate media is also ‘lovin it’. Nonadanga then becomes merely a question of ‘bad management’ by the Chief Minister. Whereas one opinion argues for an even more virulent form of corporate rule as the answer (it points to the earlier three decades of so-called ‘communist misrule’), the other opinion grants legitimacy to the CPI(M) as better political managers for the capitalist class. After all, the CPI(M) showed its capability to contain revolutionary and mass struggles for a long time, before it faltered over Singur and the Nandigram, and the building mass discontent and shifting class base. What these opinions fail to see is that these Nonadangas show again that whether it be a Mamata or a Buddhababu, they have to take credit for their shops from the same capitalist class. The handing over countless Singurs and Nonadangas to corporate at throwaway prices, the using of brute repression for it on the resisting population is to continue the normalcy of exploitation and accumulation by further demolishing the power of working class. Against this, what must be posited, in continuation from Singur, is that the revolutionary left forces organizing the working class and masses as a power will fight capital and its political executive of whichever variety, who seek to impose the fear over the people.
The hulaboo over Partho Sarathi Ray as the ‘eminent scientist’ divorced from his political positions against the depredations of global capital and state repression reminds us of the decoupling of ‘the good doctor’ Binayak Sen from his politics of demanding universal primary health (the declaration of Alma Ata, the work with Shaheed Hospital) and protest against the Operation Greenhunt. It reminds us of representing Irom Sharmila Chanu as the vaishnavite/Gandhian divorced from her struggle against the AFSPA and the Indian military’s occupation of the Northeast. The question is in this manner sought to be trivialized to mere condemnation of harassment of these ‘national assets’ ignoring their uncomfortable politics or just mentioning it in passing as merely incidental.
The last argument is a desperate attempt to confine the struggle. It raises the question of rehabilitation and livelihood from a NGOist perspective—not going into its causes, and forgetting that most rehabilitation packages are used by neo-liberalism, more often than not, to make yet another assault on the reproduction of labour-power. They thus see this as only a question of shelter for the marginalized, push the struggle into mere litigation and ask for stronger laws or better implementation of existing ones. However law itself and its enforcers create a false sense of equality even as it constitutes its ‘outside’ i.e. the slums as areas of ‘illegal encroachment’. The struggling people and the revolutionary left forces understand that what is law for one class is repression for others—and only a struggle that seeks to question ruling class law itself can shed light into how they came to be ‘illegal encroachers’ in the first place and overturn it; that it is not a question of mere ‘governance’ or more laws or protection from the state of ‘human right violations’. When here, the law of equal exchanges is pointed out, we reiterate Marx of Capital, “between equal rights, force decides”, as has been the history of capitalist production. The people assert—we are not helpless victims of atrocities but we raise the question of housing as a question of class struggle. We demand wages and housing both simultaneously, recognizing that the increase in distance between the place of residence and the source of livelihood that most resettlement and rehabilitation process imposes on the evicted slum-dwellers further devalues our labour-power by lengthening our average labour day. We link the spheres of reproduction and production, we bear the pain of your poriborton, ‘development’ and ‘aid’, and are a force who posits a different imagination. From the Paris Commune to Occupy Wall Street and the London Riots, imaginations of how cities might be reorganized in socially just and ecologically sane ways—and how they can become the focus for anti-capitalist resistance have been posited. Today in India, we find the urban space as increasingly turning into a site of such resistance even as these are still fragmented, localised and disorganized.
As the struggle in urban areas intensifies, the space of operation of NGOs and civil society organisations as only ‘mediators’ between ‘atrocities happening in some remote part’ and ‘corridors of power’ in the cities, is shrinking more and more each day. As class struggle and urban resistance sharpens, the limits of the framework of ‘legality’ and ‘civil liberties’ within which these forces work will become even starker. The shrinkage of democratic space—manifesting with even more brutal assaults by the police state and juridical machinery on the working class is inevitable. While being engaged in the struggle of Nonadanga, we learn from it and those like it that this presents a possibility, and we must seize this.
The Aspirations/Possibilities of Nonadanga
The movemental militancy here is bound not to be confined in the legal and rights discourses only; it asserts its right to the question of housing as a class question. Neo-liberal capital thrives on cheap labour and segmentation. The working class while asking whose city is it, whose space is it, militantly asserts its inalienable right to all resources and to the dignity of its labour. This possibility in Nonadanga is then the potential of the struggle of the working class in urban areas to fight for the cost of its reproduction i.e. of housing and rent, health, education, transportation. These are reflected in some of the present demands—the movement is now proceeding with the demand for proper rehabilitation which is a political demand for a dignified and free life, along with thinking of the practice of alternate forms (however transitory now) of development.
Linked to this, is the possibility of taking this struggle against exploitation to the site of production, to the connected workplaces—asking for higher wages and better working conditions. In attempting to organize domestic workers and the huge informal sector workers and unemployed in the area in these ways, we believe the struggle can take a crucial turn, and this presents a possibility of unearthing and positing through a period of struggle, a form of organized working class power. In organizational terms itself, a process of democratic churning among left revolutionary forces in tune with the movement also is at play, which is also noteworthy. Today, the future of the present struggle is still uncertain, but these possibilities show themselves as the political question that Nonadanga poses. The crisis of capitalism cannot always be managed by governance, more laws and NGOs which seek to isolate and contain these local struggles—this framework will be in danger, and thus the eruption of a hundred million Nonadangas can be a serious anti-capitalist threat in the heart of capitalism as the terrain of struggle is remapped. The state will increasingly act with the repressive and ideological apparatuses at its disposal and this clash can and will only intensify. What is required is to take the movemental militancy and democratic organizational forms in Nonadanga a step further, and in every space where capital thrusts its violent marks. Standing in solidarity with it can only mean intensifying the struggle in our own locations and furthering them to learn from and connect to each other for a proletarian upsurge.
Published by Parag (09804468173) on behalf of
KRANTIKARI NAUJAWAN SABHA (KNS)
On 7th May 2012, following the renewed threat of massive slum demolition in Gayatri Colony (near Baljeet Nagar/Anand Parbat industrial area) by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), hundreds of slum dwellers gathered outside the Chief Minister’s residence in protest. Seeing this as a problem that affects slum dwellers across the board, women and children from across different slum/JJ colonies (Pandav Nagar, Hem Nagar, Nehru Nagar, Punjabi Basti, Gayatri Colony, etc.) gathered outside Sheila Dixit’s residence. The agitated slum dwellers sought to bring to the CM’s immediate attention the plight of the thousands of impoverished workers and their families residing in slums. The agitation was carried out under the banner of the Ghar Bachao Morcha, a body formed by the slum dwellers last year itself.
After a day-long protest, the Chief Minister finally met a four member delegation. On hearing the arguments with respect to the arbitrary nature of the 1998 cut-off date, the CM assured that the slum demolition will stop, and that proper discussion on the issue will take place. She assured the slum dwellers’ representatives that her government will further look into the matter of the cut-off date.
Since the beginning of their agitation, the slum dwellers have highlighted how the slum settlements across Delhi house lakhs of poor, working class people. Most of the men in these slums work in factories/sweatshops or as rickshaw-pullers, contract workers in the MCD, vendors, etc. The women work as maid-servants in people’s homes or participate in the informal sector of the economy. However, despite their important role in the socio-economic fabric of this city, slum dwellers are treated with little respect and are made to feel as if their lives have no value. Indeed, rather than recognizing the value of their economic contribution to the city’s economy, the Government’s approach is characterized by slum demolition which is accompanied by minimal relocation and rehabilitation. Whenever slum demolitions take place, most of the families are identified as “ineligible” for rehabilitation due to the cut-off date of 1998. The few families that are considered “eligible” for rehabilitation are moved to underdeveloped settlements in far flung off and poorly connected parts the city, causing massive social and financial dislocation of affected families. Ironically, many a times the land from which slum settlements are razed is left vacant (often with the rubble of the erstwhile slum still lying around)—a fact which indicates that more than providing alternative housing for the poor, ‘hiding of the poor’ is what characterizes the DDA’s policy vis-à-vis squatter settlements.
Activists of Ghar Bachao Morcha claim that the DDA’s own records reveal just how dismissive the urban authorities are with respect to the most vulnerable section of the city’ population. For example, in a study commissioned by the DDA to the Association of Urban Management and Development Authorities in 2003, what is clearly reported is the continuous unwillingness to meet estimated targets for low income housing—a troubling policy approach which has led to a situation where an estimated 3 million people (about 27% of the total urban population) is forced to occupy less than 3% of the residential area in the city! In fact, with the arbitrarily fixed cut-off date of 1998, the urban development authorities find it easy to demolish slums with minimal relocation and rehabilitation plans. On the one hand, the Government and urban development authorities refuse to implement land sealing under the Urban Land (Sealing & Regulation) Act, and on the other hand, they arbitrarily decide that people who come to the city after a certain date are “ineligible” to actually live in the city they work in.
The slum dwellers also pointed to the past record of DDA’s slum-clearance clearly shows that lands from which slum dwellers are evicted are mostly used for construction of malls or high-rise residential complexes which only the rich can afford. This, they argued was most unfortunate, considering that the DDA is supposed to cater to the needs of all strata of society. However, in reality very little of DDA’s finances are spent on housing projects for the poor. Quite expectedly then, the city’s slum dwellers are questioning the rationale of an urban development plan that excludes a very large portion of the city’s working population. The question is can urban authorities even claim that shopping malls and high-rise residential complexes are projects implemented for “larger public interest”, and are hence, projects that legitimately require urgent slum demolition.
It is in this spirit that the city’s slum dwellers are protesting , and have put forward the following set of demands:
1. Immediate steps should be taken to stop any further demolition and clearance of slums
2. In-situ development of slums
3. Abolition of the 1998 cut-off date;
4. Introduction of land sealing under the Urban Land (Sealing & Regulation) Act;
5. Immediate action to be taken against all callous officials involved in the arbitrary demolition of our slum
6. Immediate provision of temporary shelter, drinking water, sanitary facilities to all affected families
7. Release of compensation to those who have lost property in the process of demolition
8. Provision of health-care facilities to displaced families
9. That housing policies for the poor should be prioritized by the DDA, and that the DDA should recommend a feasible and affordable housing policy/plan for the urban poor to the Government of NCT of Delhi and the Central Urban Development Ministry
10. Before pursuing demolition the DDA should make use of proper consultation mechanisms, and should use all measures to take the slum dwellers into confidence.
On May 1, the Karawal Nagar Mazdoor Union, Stree Mazdoor Sangathan and Bigul Mazdoor Dasta organised a ‘Mazdoor Adhikaar Rally’ (Workers’ Rights Rally). The struggle of the unorganised workers of Karawal Nagar Yamuna Pushta started 4 years ago in 2008, when a union of almond workers was formed. In 2009, the Almond Workers Union (Badaam Mazdoor Union) organised a big strike which continued for more than two weeks and compelled the almond factory owners to compromise. This was one of the largest strikes of unorganised workers that Delhi has seen in the recent past. This strike of almond workers saw participation of informal/unorganised workers toiling in diverse occupations, like rickshaw pullers, construction workers, street vendors, etc. Some of them were in fact family members of the women almond workers, while others lived in the same area and came in support of the almond workers strike as a symbol of solidarity. In the next two years, the Badaam Mazdoor Union fought on a number of issues, organised protests against police oppression, and organised movements against the oppression by petty contractors. Most of these issues did not belong particularly to the almond workers, rather they were issues of all the unorganised workers of the area, irrespective of their occupations. The leaders of the Badaam Mazdoor Union realised that de facto, the union has become a union of the informal/unorganised workers of the area. So in 2011, the Badaam Mazdoor Union was transformed into the Karawal Nagar Mazdoor Union (KMU). KMU was formed as the neighbourhood-based union of the workers of Karawal Nagar.
On the May Day 2011, around 2 thousand workers from the Karawal Nagar Yamuna Pushta area gathered on Jantar Mantar under the leadership of KMU, along with thousands of other workers from different parts of Delhi, as well as, UP and Punjab. This protest was organised by different unions and workers’ organisations under the banner of ‘Workers’ Charter Movement’, which is still going on. KMU has been doing an experiment in organising workers in the era of Globalisation, when working class is dispersed or scattered at the shop floor level, while at the same time, it is concentrated in terms of the neighbourhoods where workers live. KMU believes that along with factory-based unions, there is a need to organise workers on the neighbourhood basis. Without strong neighbourhood-based organisation, area-wide organisation across factories, occupations and sectors, even the strong factory-based movements cannot hope to win.
KMU is planning to hold a huge protest march against the non-implementation of government’s policies for unorganised sector workers and different labour laws pertaining to the informal sector workers, oppression by the police and goons of contractors and factory owners, and the non-regularisation of the industrial units functioning in the Karawal Nagar area. The May Day rally ended in a meeting at the office of KMU in Mukund Vihar, Karawal Nagar, in which the plan of this wider march was discussed.
The struggle for justice of the Rockman and Satyam Auto workers continues. Since last Sunday, 12 more workers from both factories have been on hunger strike at the Parade Grounds in Dehradun (and are now on their eighth day). A rally is going to be taken out by the workers shortly.
The original 11 hunger strikers, five of whom had been on hunger strike since April 6th and six from April 9th, and who had been forcibly hospitalised since April 15th, were discharged from hospital at the end of last week. They called off their hunger strike late last week after being severely beaten on the night of April 19th and forcibly put on drips (see photos here), tearing out the drips, and being threatened with further beatings. The workers decided on this after noting that further beatings would probably result in some of their comrades losing their lives.
The strike continues and has now crossed almost six weeks for the Rockman workers and five weeks for the Satyam Auto workers. There is no sign of any negotiation on the part of the government or the companies. No action has been taken against either the police for their brutality or the companies for their gross violations of labour law.
Nothing, not hunger strikes nor protests nor month-long strikes, is enough to move the conscience of the Central and State governments, wedded as they are to brutal exploitation of workers by any means possible. But the workers have refused to give up.
For background on the strike and struggle, see here. For more information please contact Amit, Inquilabi Mazdoor Kendra (09568216305) and/or Trepan Singh Chauhan, Uttarakhand Nav Nirman Mazdoor Sangh (09411143539).
For the past couple of days (from April 24 onwards) about 450-500 workers of Harsoria Healthcare Pvt. Ltd., Udyog Vihar, Phase-4, Gurgaon have been sitting inside the factory premises in protest. The factory has 250 permanent workers, 300 contract workers and about 50 casual workers. They are protesting against the termination of the services of their three union leaders and the suspension of 10 workers. The services of two of these leaders were terminated in Dec. 2011, while another was fired in February, 2012. The demands of the workers include payment of Deepawali bonus and regularisation of the services of casual and contract workers. The workers are also protesting against the frequent change in their departments, delay in payment of salary, increased work intensity and non-payment of loyalty bonus of about Rs. 1500 per month on completion of 4 years with the company.
There was a strike in April 2011 in this factory when the management dismissed 7 workers out of which 6 of them were taken back following negotiations. The services of three of these workers have been terminated again. There was a lathicharge against the workers during the April 2011 strike and 7 workers were arrested and implicated in a number of cases including one against the hoisting of the union flag at the factory gate. Around 21 workers had been implicated in one case or the other. The workers are demanding the withdrawal of these cases. Meanwhile the company management has ordered the termination of services of 100 more workers. The management has also declared that it does not want to see the permanent workers within the company premises.
The strike by the workers of Rockman and Satyam Auto (both plants in Haridwar), suppliers of Hero Motors, has now crossed a month in length. 11 hunger strikers are still being forcibly detained in hospital. The Rockman workers have been on strike now for five weeks (since March 19th) and the Satyam Auto workers for almost as long (since March 22nd). Six Rockman workers have been on hunger strike since April 6th (19 days); five Satyam workers since April 9th (16 days); and 12 more workers since Sunday. These last 12 hunger strikers have not yet been detained. The workers are still protesting in the Parade Ground at Dehradun after their release from jail last week.
Aside from an expression of regret by the DGP (who has also said he has directed an inquiry into the beating of the hunger strikers in the hospital), the government has taken no action whatosever. Both companies – which grossly violated labour law – are functioning with contract workers and supplying to Hero Motors, which reportedly is accepting substandard and shoddy parts from them just in order to break the strikers.
As earlier, for more details please contact Trepan Singh Chauhan, Uttarakhand Nav Nirman Mazdoor Sangh (09411143539), and/or Amit, Inquilabi Mazdoor Kendra (09568216305.
BLIND WORKERS GHERAO THE RESIDENCE OF THE MINISTER OF SOCIAL JUSTICE & EMPOWERMENT
DAY-LONG PROTEST LEADS TO THE GRANT OF JOBS TO RETRENCHED BLIND WORKERS
WORKERS DEMAND IMMEDIATE DISCUSSION ON THE LANGUISHING 2011 BILL ON RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITY
Today, large numbers of blind workers collected outside the residence of the Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, Shri Mukul Wasnik. These workers have met the concerned Minister, as well as officials in the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment on several occasions since November 2011. However, the deep rooted concerns of blind workers lay un-addressed. Today, when the blind workers initially gheraoed the residence of the Hon’ble Minister, he did not meet them, and left his residence in haste. This response once again convinced the blind workers that the Government is least concerned about providing adequate employment to the blind, as well as protecting the basic labour rights of blind workers employed in the private sector. However, undeterred by the Minister’s initial decision not to entertain a delegation, the blind workers continued to sit outside the Minister’s residence in the scorching April heat. The militant protest finally led to some dialogue as the K.M. Acharya met with the workers’ delegation. Following a lengthy discussion between Shri Mukul Wasnik and officials in the Ministry, the Ministry finally agreed to provide alternative employment at a government-supported institute, to all the blind workers retrenched by the NGO, National Federation of the Blind (NFB).
Since November of last year, the blind workers have been protesting the retrenchment of several blind workers by the NFB. This NGO retrenched the workers because they were speaking out against denial of minimum wages and other basic labour rights in the Training and Rehabilitation Centres (TRCs) run by the NGO. However, the struggle of the workers is not just against the NFB, but also against the overall exploitation of blind workers across the country by private companies and NGOs. In the interest of availing of certain benefits like tax exemption for employing persons with disability, the private sector is known to employ yet brutally exploit disabled persons. The arbitrary hiring and firing practices, unregulated working hours, etc. prevalent in the private sector, amount to a serious breach of social justice, which is why the bind workers have been approaching the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. More importantly, the workers realize that the failure of successive governments to provide adequate employment to the blind community is the main reason why blind workers are dependent on the highly exploitative private sector. Hence, their struggle is based on the fundamental right to a livelihood—a right the Government is to protect and uphold. The three specific demands that the workers sought to discuss with the Minister were:
(i) Inclusion of a special section in the long pending Bill on the Rights of Persons With Disability (2011), which would safeguard the economic rights of blind workers employed in the private sector. For example, the Bill should include provisions to the effect that bodies violating basic labour rights will be penalized to the effect that NGOs indulging in such violation will face the cancellation of their registration.
(ii) That the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment tables a concrete plan of greater job creation for blind persons in the public sector. It is only with the provision of more government jobs that the dependence of blind workers on exploitative private companies and corrupt NGOs can be overcome.
(iii) That because the Ministry has failed to curb the blatant violation of labour rights by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), it should ensure that all the disabled workers employed by NFB be provided alternative employment by the Government.
As the situation stands, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has conceded the third demand of the blind workers. With respect to the first and second demand, the Ministry has asked the Blind Workers Union (BWU) to provide a concrete plan which can be subsequently discussed and implemented.
Alok Kumar
Ramnath
Blind Workers Union
(A Unit of All India Federation of Blind Workers)
T-44, Panjabi Basti, Near Gopal Dairy, Baljeet Nagar, New Delhi-110008
Contact: 9313730069 Email: blindworkersunion@gmail.com
Halt eviction drives of urban slums and colonies!
Uphold the struggle of the toilers for the right to land!
Militant resistance in Nonadanga long live!!
Comrades, we are witnessing today the militant resistance of slum-dwellers of Nonadanga against the eviction drive of the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) through brute police force. Nonadanga presents us with the determination of the urban poor and working class to constitute an alternative form of social, political and economic power. The residents of Nonadanga have refused to budge from the site, have put up temporary shelters and a community kitchen, and are confronting the police everyday with their bare hands and their indomitable will, trying to hold on to whatever little they are left with. Since April 11, 5 comrades under Ucched Pratirodh Committee have persisted with a fast-unto-death in the site for 12 days with undeterred support of the entire slum, and beyond. Reconstruction and rebuilding of the demolished houses are being undertaken by them.
Nonadanga is a paradigm of struggle and unity that must be generalised across Kolkata, West Bengal and beyond. For, it’s only through the eruption of a hundred, thousand, million Nonadangas across the country – that the working class will be able to effectively pose its might and vision against the prevailing hegemony of neo-liberalism and its authoritarian political executive. In the absence of such a countrywide generalisation of urban resistance, the working masses of this country, including the residents of Nonadanga, have no hope in hell.
We are witnessing in India today, a ground preparing for a rising tide of urban upsurge. However much the ruling classes seek to dazzle the working people with the shine of their developmentist fables, corporate parks and election promises, they cannot hide from us the violence that is intrinsic to this process of capitalist ‘development’. Even as the agrarian crisis daily pushes the peasantry from villages to the cities as a proletarianised mass, capital is busy robbing this ever-growing population of urban workers of its bare necessities such as living wages, adequate land, decent housing and clean drinking water by putting up ever-heightening enclosures of rent and user-charges. Not just that. The political executive of capital does not flinch from turning the misery it produces into an opportunity for further accumulation. Even the demand for rehabilitation is used by neo-liberalism, more often than not, to carry out yet another assault on the reproduction of labour-power. The increase in distance between the place of residence and the source of livelihood that most resettlement and rehabilitation process imposes on the evicted slum-dwellers further devalues their labour-power by lengthening their average labour-day. Worse, any murmur of dissent against such accumulation by dispossession is brutally crushed by the state in order to ensure that the value of our labour-power can be progressively diminished even as the rate of extraction of surplus value is simultaneously enhanced and capitalist class power is reinforced.
The ongoing struggle against forcible eviction of slum-dwellers in Nonadanga, Kolkata, has revealed precisely that. On March 30, 2012, the KMDA, with the full support of the Trinamool Congress-led West Bengal government and its police force, bulldozed and burnt down the houses of over 200 families in the shantytown of Nonadanga in the name of ‘development’ and ‘beautification’. These people, who have lost their homes and hearths, are those whose cheap labour is ‘legally’ exploited to run the economy of the entire city. They are the toilers of unending nights and days, informal-sector workers and unemployed battling precarious living conditions. Among them are either those who were resettled here after being evicted from various canal banks across the city, or those whom the Cyclone Aila (2009) and the farm crisis uprooted from villages in the Sunderbans and other parts of the state respectively.
The state (and the corporate media), acting on behalf of capitalist land sharks eyeing this prime location in the city, are hell-bent on portraying these people as ‘illegal encroachers’. It has unleashed police and ‘legal’ repression, on an everyday basis, on all those who have been trying to resist this. A march of residents, under the banner of Ucched Pratirodh Committee (Resistance-to-Eviction Committee), was brutally lathicharged by the police on April 4, and again a sit-in demonstration four days later (April 8th) was violently broken up and 67 people arrested. Subsequent meetings and rallies held in solidarity with the movement on April 9 and 12 were attacked by goons and hundreds of activists were arrested by the police. Seven activists of various mass and democratic rights organisations, which stood in support of the Nonadanga movement, are either in jail or in police remand till April 26. Cases under Sections 353, 332, 141, 143, 148 and 149 of the IPC have been slapped on them. One of them, Debolina Chakraborty, has even been charged under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). During a court hearing on April 12, a prosecution team of 40 lawyers made a concerted bid to implicate them in a slew of false cases and paint them as ‘anti-national’, opening earlier ‘Nandigram cases’, even going so far as to claim that Nonadanga was used for ‘stockpiling arms and ammunition’. We remember that this Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool government came to power using the anger of the people over the Singurs and Nandigrams of the previous CPI(M) government to its parliamentary ends. It is they who are now using the instruments of repression at their disposal in a hurry to prove themselves as faithful lapdogs of their class masters.
Comrades, Nonadanga has shown us the way. For, the sword of eviction hangs not just on a Nonadanga, or for that matter a Bhalaswa (Delhi). Today in India, 256 lakh people are homeless or live in abject conditions in slums, and this number is progressively on the rise. Forget jobs or providing decent education, the state is retreating from all its responsibilities of providing us with the cost of living and reproduction. Evicting us from our homes has become the norm, as the cities are restructured according to the needs of the ruling classes. In Delhi, Shiela Dixit’s Congress-led government has drawn up a list of 44 colonies to be evicted in the next few months- 33 in the first phase. The criteria for being allotted the meagre government flats is possession of voter identity card, aadhar card and ration card as of 2007, and a capacity to make a down-payment of Rs 80,000. We are thrown into these legalisms even as we suffer the already inadequate housing and water situation. Even in the six resettlement colonies in Delhi, the conditions are horrendous. When one of our comrades from Bhalaswa presented Delhi CM Shiela Dixit with a bottle of water from her area, the CM was at first deceived by the colour of the water to think that she was being offered Pepsi-cola to quench her thirst. People living in slums in various parts of the city are the ones who make the city what it is, who make the super-profits of the capitalists possible. It is these people who become an embarrassment for the government, whichever party is in power, and whatever their false election promises. We remember the spate of demolitions which was the run-up to the Commonwealth games 2010, and how the political managers of capital attempted to hide our ‘dirty’ dwellings and crush our then disunited voices of protest. This continues daily, even today. On 20th April 2012, the DDA with over 2000 police force, attempted to demolish and evict slum-dwellers from Gayatri Colony near Anand Parbat industrial area in Delhi, but were forced to retreat faced with the unity and resistance of the residents.
Even here in Delhi, we have daily struggled on the streets for our rights and demands. We have, however, also been disunited owing to our precarious existence and localised struggles. When in Kolkata, our brothers and sisters are fighting it out not merely for survival but for the right to live a dignified and free life, let us wish it all power and condemn the authoritarian actions of the government of West Bengal. Let us stand with them in solidarity, and also intensify our struggles at our own locations.
We condemn the action of the Trinamool-led West Bengal government and the brutal lathicharge on the Nonadanga residents and their supporters on April 4, and the threat of impending everyday violence. We also condemn the arrest and framing of activists who stand in support of the resistance.
WE DEMAND:
Immediate and unconditional release of all the activists arrested on April 8. Drop charges against all seven of them: Debolina Chakraborty, Samik Chakraborty, Abhijnan Sarkar, Debjani Ghoah, Manas Chatterjee, Siddhartha Gupta and Partha Sarathi Ray.
Drop the draconian UAPA and all charges on Debolina Chakraborty, and release her immediately and unconditionally.
The state must stop further harassment of residents and activists, and apologise to the people for having infringed upon its democratic right to organise and dissent; and take action against the police officers involved in the lathicharge on April 4.
The right to housing and rehabilitation of the slum-dwellers and hawkers in Nonadanga must be immediately ensured in a fair and just manner so that that their labour-power is not further devalued.
All construction in Nonadanga by the KMDA must come to an immediate halt. The eviction drive in the city, and the anti-people programme of neo-liberal capitalist development of which it is an integral part, must be stopped.
The process of slum-eviction in Delhi must be stopped immediately and inhabitants of the jhuggi-jhopri clusters in the city should be provided with adequate land, and respectable housing with clean drinking-water sources and proper sanitation amenities.
Join a protest demonstration outside
Banga Bhavan on 25 April 11.30 am
Sd/-
All India Federation of Trade Unions(New)
All India Students Association
All India Revolutionary Students Organisation
Bigul Mazdoor Dasta
Disha Chatra Sagathan
Inquilabi Mazdoor Kendra
Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association
Krantikari Naujawan Sabha
Krantikari Yuva Sangathan
Mazdoor Patrika
Mehnatkash Mazdoor Morcha
New Socialist Initiative
Peoples’ Democratic Front of India
Progressive Democratic Students Union
People’s Union for Democratic Rights
Posco Pratirodh Solidarity-Delhi
Radical Notes
Sanhati-Delhi
Shramik Sangram Committee
Students For Resistance
Vidyarthi Yuvajan Sabha
At the moment the struggle of the Rockman and Satyam Auto workers in Dehradun continues. The 11 hunger strikers continue to resist forcefeeding though they have been forced into accepting drips for now. The way in which they were forced to do that should be apparent from the photos below, which were taken after the beating of these hunger strikers on Thursday night. It takes a special level of brutality to beat a group of extremely weak hunger strikers into submission.
It is understood that the DG of Police today informed a workers’ delegation (accompanied by representatives of Inquilab Mazdoor Kendra and Uttarakhand Nav Nirman Mazdoor Sangh) that he has directed an inquiry into this violence.
Meanwhile, the Uttarakhand government has shown no interest in holding the companies accountable.
The struggle of the Rockman and Satyam Auto workers is continuing in Dehradun. The 11 workers who have been on hunger strike since April 4th were transferred to the ICU of Doon Hospital on Thursday evening and then beaten up that night in order to force them to accept IV drips. One was beaten so badly that he began to bleed from his wounds. The workers resisted the IVs and repeatedly have tried to remove them; this battle is continuing. On Friday they registered a complaint against the beatings. The remaining 326 workers are still in the Parade Ground, Dehradun, after repeated rallies, and today another 40 workers were considering joining the hunger strike.
The management continues to ignore the struggle and the protests. The government has made no effort to reinitiate any dialogue. The workers demanded that the SDM tell them why this is happening, he professed ignorance and said he will check with his superiors.
Meanwhile, since practically the entire permanent workforce of both Rockman and Satyam Auto is out on strike, it has been something of a mystery as to how they continue to supply Hero Motors. It is understood that the three managements have reached an agreement whereby Hero has suspended its quality rules and are accepting the inferior parts being made by overworked and new contract workers that have been press-ganged into replacing the strikers. This is of course a betrayal of those who purchase Hero products and could have safety implications.
Slum Razed Near Anand Parbat in West Delhi
DDA Calls in the Police in Large Numbers While Case is Still Pending in High Court
Activists and Slum Dwellers Lathi-charged and Arrested
On Friday, the 20th of April, agitated residents from the slum located in Gayatri Colony (Gulshan Chowk), near Anand Parbat industrial area, watched with horror and helplessness as bulldozers cleared away a large portion of the slum cluster. Resisting the sudden and brazen move of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), the impoverished residents of the slum tried to fight back and save their belongings. However, they were overpowered by a large deployment of Delhi Police.
The Police, numbering almost 3000, resorted to a brutal lathicharge. At this moment, the Police has left several injured, and has also arrested six activists of the Ghar Bachao Morcha. The Ghar Bachao Morcha was formed from amongst the slum dwellers of Anand Parbat last year in March, when the DDA had made similar attempts to displace the residents. Most of the residents of this slum cluster are impoverished workers who are employed in the nearby factories of Anand Parbat. Last year when the DDA’s designs of displacement became clear, the residents organized themselves under the banner of the Ghar Bachao Morcha, and had demonstrated outside the DDA headquarters in Vikas Sadan. Realizing that the residents had filed a case in the High Court, the DDA temporarily withdrew its offensive. However suddenly, despite the case pending in Court, a demolition drive has begun again.
Apart from the six activists arrested, several residents of the slum were detained. Nevertheless, due to the pressure of the residents’ agitation, the DDA has, as of now, withdrawn from the site. Since the slum dwellers gheraoed the Anand Parbat thana, the Police were compelled to release the six activists from Ghar Bachao Morcha.
Unfortunately, a bleak future looms ahead of the slum dwellers, as even judicial proceedings fail to offer them protection and respite from the clutches of a building corporation determined to push through high income housing projects and construction of malls and shopping arcades. Housing for the poor and protection of their existing residence is hardly of concern to the urban development authorities. Realizing this, the slum dwellers are all the more determined to keep their struggle going so as to protect their right of residence in the city.
Alok Kumar
Convenor
Ghar Bachao Morcha
House No.T-44, Near Gopal Dairy, Baljeet Nagar, New Delhi-110008.
Mobile: 9313730069
Today (April 17), a joint protest demonstration was organized in front of the Uttarakhand Niwas, Chnakyapuri. The protestors raised slogans against the management of Satyam Auto and Rockman Auto Pvt Ltd, and the anti-labour Uttarakhand government. They strongly condemned the brutal lathicharge on struggling workers, and their illegal detention in various jails acroos Dehradun. Members of the following organizations were present: Inqulabi Mazdoor Kendra, Mehnatkash Mazdoor Morcha, AIFTU(New), Mazdoor Ekta Kendra, Krantikari Lok Adhikar Sangathan, Uttarakhand Nav Nirman Mazdoor Sangh, Mazdoor Patrika, Krantikari Naujawan Sabha, PDFI, Pragatisheel Mahila Ekta Kendra, TUCI, Radical Notes
A five member delegation handed over the following memorandum to the Resident Commissioner of Uttarakhand.
Dated: 17.04.2012
To
The Residence commissioner
Uttarakhand Bhawan,
Govt. of Uttarakhand
New Delhi
Sub:- Memorandum on behalf of Mass organizations in solidarity with workers of Rockman Industries pvt. Ltd. & Satyam Auto component Ltd.
Sir,
We are in solidarity with the workers of Rockman Industries pvt. Ltd. & Satyam Auto component Ltd. of SIDCUL Haridwar who are on path of agitation for their trade union demands from management. Labor department and state government is well aware with the rampant violation of labor laws in these companies like other industries situated in SIDCUL, however they do not feel any necessity to intervene in the matter to check the super exploitation of workers by the management. Contrary to their administrative responsibility assigned under the law of the land, they are hobnobbing with the management and resorted to repress the workers movement.
On 15.04.2012 workers who were on Anshan w.e.f. 06.04.2012 in capital city of Dehradoon were lathicharged and detained under various penal provisions. 326 workers are in jail and 11 were forcibly hospitalized. Management who is responsible for industrial unrest is moving freely and hobnobbing with newly elected congress government which is determined to crush worker’s movement like Haryana and other states.
Uttarrakhand government claims that after formation of new state it has gone ahead with industrialization of the state and in order to do so, SIDCUL has been established in different parts of the state like, Haridwar, Rudrapur, Pantnagar etc. However we have found that these are hell for the workers. No Job security, no wage norm, no labor law and sheer exploitation of the workers are only norm in these industrial areas of Uttarkhand. It is tax heaven for the investors and corporate and hell for the workers. Casualization and contract system that too, illegal contract system is norm in the industrial belt of uttarakhand.
The above named industrial units are major vendor of Honda motor co. , which do not adhere to the labor norms. Illegal contract system is going on in these factories and workers are forced to work on lower wages upto 12 hours a day. Workers in these units of Haridwar are paid only Rs. 6000 P.M. by the co. for the similar work , which get Rs. 12000/ per month in gurgaon plant of the co. Workers are deprived of basic right to form union of their own choice. 5 leading workers were terminated since they had taken initiative to form union and put forward their wage related demands. Around 600 workers of Rockman industries are on strike 18th March 2012 however labor department and civil administration is unmoved by the agitation of the workers. Both regular and contract workers joined the strike for furtherance of their demand.
We condemn police atrocity on striking workers and demand that:-
1. Police officials responsible for lathicharge on workers and illegal detention of workers be reprimanded and charge sheeted.
2. Labor minister of Uttarakhand Government resolve the labor dispute by calling a meeting of agitating workers and management of Rockman Industries pvt. Ltd. & Satyam Auto component Ltd.
3. Restore labor laws in Rockman Industries pvt. Ltd. & Satyam Auto component Ltd as well as in other industries in Uttarakhand.
4. Terminated workers of Rockman Industries pvt. Ltd. be reinstated without any condition.
5. Illegal contract system be abolished.
6. Management of Rockman Industries pvt. Ltd. & Satyam Auto component Ltd. be punished for violation of labor laws.
7. Workers of Rockman Industries pvt. Ltd. & Satyam Auto component Ltd. be paid wages proportionate to the workload and they should be paid overtime as required under law.
An update on the ongoing struggle by Rockman and Satyam Auto workers in Uttarakhand. As reported yesterday, 326 workers are in jail and 11 hunger striking workers are detained in hospital. As of yesterday evening, all 326 workers in jail have joined the hunger strike. The 11 hunger strikers already in hospital have resisted force feeding. They are weakening but still in good health.
It is understood that the SDM has directed their detention until April 20th, though the legal provisions under which this has been done are not clear. The government has also announced to TV channels that the Labour Commissioner will be asked to intervene. Protests are planned today and tomorrow in Dehradun. Shankar Gopalakrishnan
Between 12 and 1 today, the Uttarakhand police lathi charged more than 300 workers who have been sitting on a protest in Dehradun for the last ten days. 11 workers who have been on hunger strike (six from April 6th and five who joined them on April 9th) have been forcibly hospitalised in Doon Hospital, where they are resisting attempts to forcefeed them. 326 workers have been arrested and detained in various jails in the city.
The workers have been on strike for more than three weeks now. They are employees of the Rockman and Satyam Auto plants in Haridwar, both major suppliers of Hero Motors. As in Manesar, Haryana last year, these workers are being paid extremely low wages for more than 12 hours of work a day; when they sought to form a union to demand respect for labour laws, the five leaders of the union were illegally sacked immediately and the others threatened with punishment. On March 19th the majority of permanent workers at Rockman came out on strike in protest at this illegal brutality, and on March 22nd they were joined by all the permanent workers at Satyam. Their main demands are:
1. That they be allowed to form a union as per law, which both companies are trying to suppress;
2. That the five workers who were illegally terminated be reinstated;
3. That all labour laws be complied with within the factory;
4. That their wages be made proportionate to the workload and that they should be paid overtime as required by law.
In the first week of April, in an attempt to suppress their protest, the Uttarakhand government declared section 144 in force in Haridwar. On April 4th the workers sough to come to teh capital, Dehradun, to take out a peaceful march. This too was thwarted by the police, whereupon the workers sat down on dharna at the Parade Ground in the city. On the 6th, six Rockman workers went on hunger strike, and they were joined by five Satyam workers on the 9th. They have been fasting ever since, weakening every day.
No response has come from the government. When a delegation sought to meet the Chief Minister, he told them that these workers are overpaid, that the strike and protest is a conspiracy, and that they would be “dealt with.” The meaning of those words has been demonstrated today.
Workers in other factories in Haridwar, including in Eveready ITC, VIP, and the public sector company Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd., have declared their support for the strike. A protest and delegation from other factories in Haridwar is planned tomorrow.
For more details please contact Trepan Singh Chauhan, Uttarakhand Nav Nirman Mazdoor Sangh (09411143539), and/or Amit, Inquilabi Mazdoor Kendra (09568216305).
