The informal sector continues to lie outside the purview of the government, with an absence of data in migrant workers, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic, and informed policymaking. What is the path ahead?
Written by: Arjun Kumar, Ritika Gupta, Sunidhi Agarwal, Sakshi Sharda, Anshula Mehta
Keeping the migrant worker’s issues at centre stage and recognising the social and economic cost of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Impact and Policy Research Institute (IMPRI), Working Peoples’ Charter and Indian Social Institute organised a panel discussion on migrant workers, labour rights, the impact and way forward of policies.
The esteemed panellists were Prof A V Jose, Honorary Visiting Professor at the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Kerala; Ms Amarjeet Kaur, General Secretary, All-India Trade Union Congress; Mr Sandeep Chachra, Executive Director, ActionAid India, and Co-Chair, World Urban Campaign, UN-HABITAT; Dr Elina Samantroy Jena, Fellow (Faculty), VV Giri National Labour Institute (VVGNLI), Noida; and lastly, Mr Chandan Kumar, National Coordinator, Working People’s Charter.
Importance Of May Day
Setting the tone for the panel discussion, Dr Denzil Fernandes, Executive Director, Indian Social Institute, New Delhi, and convener of the panel discussion spoke about the importance of May Day. The day commemorates the efforts of workers in the development and growth of the nation. This is also the day to recognise worker rights and acknowledge the gaps. In the neoliberal power structure, worker rights are diminishing as the corporates grow. May Day 2021 becomes ever more important as it comes in the middle of a pandemic.
Academicians have been engaged in a discussion of migrant rights following the lockdown in May 2020, which saw a huge humanitarian crisis. The government has not been still in this era of turmoil, wherein they have rushed through the passing of the Labour Code Bill, 2021. The NITI Aayog has developed its Draft National Migrant Workers’ Policy. Moderator Dr K R Shyam Sundar, Professor, HRM Area, XLRI – Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, stated that May Day 2021 is not just about the workers, it is about people’s rights, it is about people’s lives and livelihoods.
The rights canvas has widened to capture beyond the working class to include migrants, farmers and daily wagers. For migrant workers, the first glaring gap that hits is the complete absence of data. The conversation around migrant workers has become mainstream due to COVID-19. It is after 10 months of misery, the government and its think-tank NITI Aayog have now come with the draft migration policy along with five surveys. The Labour Minister acknowledged in the Parliament that setting up a consolidated database on migrant workers would take the government six months.
Keeping this in mind, we will probably have a ready database by the end of 2021. This announcement is still not clear: which method is being followed for data collection, the census method or the sample method? The objective of the exercise is to arrive at an estimate or to identify on a census mode?
At this time, it is important to ask if the Draft Migration Policy is a good daft indeed. When is the final policy to be expected? Has the government consulted the trade unions and all stakeholders? Can the government record person-to-person migrant workers on a data portal in order for the state and Central government to provide direct benefit transfers? Does migration have a gender element? Are the labour codes (still have not come into effect) any respite to the existing labour laws that are still on record?
With the second wave, we are staring at the possibility of a reverse exodus of migrants again from cities. There have been resorts in national dailies from major urban centres such as Surat, Mumbai and Delhi even though the State and Central governments continue to deny the same. There has been a spike in the demand for jobs under MGNREGA. The Delhi government has already provided Rs 5,000 to construction workers from the construction cess fund.
Do we have the necessary policy measures to tackle the migrant either at the point of origin or point of destination in the reverse sense?— Ms Amarjeet Kaur
Ms Amarjeet Kaur, General Secretary, All-India Trade Union Congress, pointed out that the COVID situation was attempted by the government to be used as an opportunity. The government delayed salvaging the migrant worker from their suffering because they were busy with the political agenda. Meanwhile, the government also sold the national wealth and national resources.
The PSU was sold in the second wave, and we realise the indispensability of public institutions. No lessons were learned the last year. Though the transportation has not stopped this time because there is no national lockdown. The public sector is not prepared for the demand that results in workers having no choice but being left to the mercy of private transportation services that are exploiting the conditions.
May Day celebrations began with the government returning to eight hours working day, they had attempted change to 12 hours working day. The legalisation of trade unions was the result of a law passed in 1926; while the government is not doing much for the formal organised sector, we are speaking of the informal economy, which is outside the purview of the establishment. In the neoliberal era, the regular fixed jobs are coming to an end with centralisation and casualisation of labour.
Precariat Of The World
Prof AV Jose began by recounting the success of the labour movement in Europe, where governments have now tacitly begun to recognise the rights of migrant workers. The rights of these migrants who came from nowhere became the agenda of international organisations. They are still not part of the legal architecture of the rich countries.
Migrants in Indian left the countryside in search of a dignified means of survival, with their only demand being a reasonable income. As per the estimates of the period Labor Force Survey, migrants in the state of origin were earning on average only Rs 6,800 for male workers and 4,000 for female workers. Less than 5,000 for males and less the 3,500 women harbour most migrants. Even after self-employment, there was only a marginal rise in income that is less than 7,000 for male workers and less than 3,500 for female workers.
This is proof of regional and glaring gender inequality. They believed that a secure income was a possibility in urban centres. These workers at the most earn Rs 20,000, on an average of Rs 13,000 per month for men and Rs. 15,000 per month for women at their destination. They were exploited by the national elite, they were the progeny of the demographic transition of India with minimal education and products of a fertility transformation and rise in population. They transformed into squallers and failed to extend humane conditions for the migrants.
Adding to the discussion, Mr Sandeep Chachra stated it is difficult to separate migrants from informal workers. An attempt for the same is politics in the negative direction. Informal workers in India constitute 6% of the global population and a third of the Indian population. It is not advisable to separate the two. The focus must be on unmasking the issues of informal workers.
Rights-Based Approach
Continuing the discussion, Prof A V Jose stated a breakdown and any sense of vulnerability would have led to complete devastation of their wages and livelihoods. This is exactly what happened during the pandemic — in the absence of healthcare and security, the migrants were left with no choice but to return to the countryside. Any serious discourse on rights must recognise that entitlements mature into rights, social norms were built into the legal framework of the international organisations. Only lip service was provided in the convections on migrant rights.
In our country, the moment you migrate, you forfeit the right to participate in the electoral process, leading to a situation where there is no possibility for this section of the population to be acknowledged or recognised. Until and unless we can embellish and enhance the content of their entitlement we cannot incorporate them into the language of human rights. A mere legal reform is not enough back in the countryside. There is a need to replace distress-based migration with demand-based migration.
The entitlements that must be ensured to the migrants are the right to food, the right to a secure job, the right to healthcare, right to basic education. — Prof A V Jose
There should be a focus on redistributive transfers focused on education, healthcare and urban and dignified living environment, which again and alone will create the minimum resource price. Based on this, each migrant worker can decide autonomously on the need for migration. No individual would be pushed into migration. There is no shortage of resources it is just a question of polities to work together.
Beyond An Apology
Mr Chachra spoke passionately that there is a specific history of informal sectors. We cannot be oblivious to questions of caste where the majority of Dalits constitute workers. There are various kinds of apologies that are due to this section of the population. The advisories to Human Rights Commission is on the question of vulnerable workers on the frontline that is the sanitation workers, burial ground worker caste-biased sex workers (even though Ambedkar eloquently pointed that this work was not of choice but a necessity), etc.
Any discussion about informal workers cannot ignore the caste reality even if it is mere lip service being provided to the issue. —Mr Sandeep Chachra
The next question specific inequity comes from gender. The domestic workers are triple embattled with the intersection of various issues. Work participation rates of women has fallen during the pandemic, their work has been underpaid as pointed by Prof AV Jose and unpaid work is a reality. Policies can no more be oblivious to the glaring impacts of patriarchy.
The last specific history is the consequence of colonization. What does decolonisation mean? What would be a transformative understanding of work? To encapsulate indigenous workers at the earliest. The question of indignity cannot be forgotten. These are questions that are conjoined with neoliberalism to result in imperialism.
Women Migrants
Dr Elina Samantroy Jena detailed migrant rights from the gender lens. India has been facing a decline in the labour market participation for women and the earlier employment and unemployment surveys and now the periodic labour force service hold testimony to that statement. From 42.7% at around in 2004-05 to now 24.5% in 2018-19, it’s a significant decline and if you look, around 27 our female labour force is low and we experienced a 1.2 percent% a marginal increase in 2018-19. But the challenge here is that increase was because of the employment.
Women are mostly engaged in informal work and when the pandemic hit, women who work in the community, social and personal services and retail trade, manufacturing and construction were affected. There was a sectoral hit on livelihood during the pandemic. There has now been an increase of 53.4% of self-employed women. There is the perineal challenge of lack of social security and lack of reach of existing labour legislation. Most of their work does not account in the national account statistics as well.
Unpaid Care Work a perennial bain of Indian Society. — Dr Elina Samantroy Jena
An ILO report in 2017-18 located that 79% of the workforce in the service industry was composed of working migrant women. The majority of these women were domestic workers who regularly face job insecurity and exploitation. There has been no policy response to these questions of insecurity. Further, 75% of females did not have any job contract and only 3% have contracts of three years. Even among regular waged employees, 63% of women did not have job contracts.
Labour Codes
Ms Amarjeet Kaur located that contrary to the belief that the national draft migrant workers’ policy is the result of deliberation and debate, it seems to be an attempt to save face. One cannot be but suspicious about the time of the policy released by NITI Aayog that is close to the virtual meeting of ILO. The government wants to pose their seriousness and create records of deliberation with the trade unions. This is just to create the conditions that looked as though the tripartite structure was respected.
The labour code bills were introduced the day when trade unions were on strike. The minister while introducing the code on wages instead of repeating the recommendation of their expert committee of Rs 376 per day as minimum wages they stated the amount to be Rs 178 per day. They did not change the national minimum wage but only spoke of any change to floor wages. So the legal implications of minimum wages were left and no recommendations were accepted from the standing parliamentary committee.
The labour codes when introduced in the Parliament had to face a complete boycott by the opposition. The current migrant law that is in existence presents the migrant’s occupational safety health code, which has not been changed in the draft national migrant workers policy. There is no recalibration to evaluate the needs at the origin or destination, there is no evaluation of demand, etc.
Interjecting, Mr Sandeep Chachra said that any transformation of hard-earned labour rights can be evaluated on four dimensions. First is wage, neither minimum wage nor floor wage deal with the question of reasonable wage and there is a need for wage compensation. The second dimension is conditions of/at work. Labour codes tend to legitimise in one way or another these glaring inequities in a micro reading of the labour codes.
The third dimension is the question of labour rights and human rights. Today, we have the new phenomenon of neo-bondage or contractual bondage. Water rights have has been watered down for three decades in the country today; there is an unfulfilled desire for social security in India and social safety in India. Beyond limited gains that have been made by construction workers, that too in the account of charity, all other trades and sectors have no way out and no possibility of compensation.
Government Policies Under A Microscope
Ms Amarjeet Kaur suggested that the government has been callous without understanding the quantum of the issue. The health infrastructure’s growth has been impeded. Oxygen plants that the government had to set up to ensure no health failure work only began in October. The government has no intention of collating data because it dismantled its institutions like the NSSO, Statistical Institute, and Labor Bureau statistics are actively hidden. The government backtracked from the promise to pay lockdown wages and ensure there will be no entrenchment.
In the last pandemic, the Government of India presented the cess funds under their relief package. The mineral institutes used their own money that was used to provide welfare to the workers. The relief that was provided to the farmers as part of budget allocation as a special COVID-19 relied on. Trade unions demand Rs 7,500 for non-income tax-paying people. The Government itself has agreed to its lapses where 10 crore people did not receive the ration card.
Way Forward
For Ms Amarjeet Kaur, Kissan organisations have shown the way and trade unions stand by their side. They have shown the government that arbitrary decisions cannot take place. This fulcrum will be used to create a better future and this struggling hope of the people is the only hope.
Mr Sandeep Chachra suggested the need for a dual strategy. There is hope in people coming together. The fundamental premise of any policy stands on the apology to balm the history of exploitation. The informal workers in India are owed an apology from national elites. This would be the first step towards and reconciliation and transformation. The second step would be incremental gains towards entitlements that are a necessity for human dignity. Justice requires more and economic transformation is fundamental that will have two trajectories: first, the unfulfilled agenda of land reforms, and the second is the question of ownership.
Speaking of international standards and development Dr Elina Samantroy Jena spoke about the International Labour standards on crisis response, there have been conversations about medical facilities for migrant workers, the occupational diseases protocol is reviewing the list of diseases. There is an attempt to include COVID-19 as an occupational disease if contracted at the workplace. Rules are being framed and reviewed to incorporate the challenge of the pandemic.
Many countries have made health facilities universal. Institutional definitions leave behind a large group of undocumented migrants. Mr Chandan Kumar said we can’t expect anything from the government. There has been no labour conference in the last seven years. The entire labour regime has changed without any deliberation from the temple of Indian Democracy, the Parliament. The working poor in this country are resilient enough and they are fighting exploitation.
There is a need for course correction and there has been none in the ground. The Chhattisgarh and Telangana governments have developed very concrete policies, but they still haven’t been implemented. It is a mammoth task and can state take it upon themselves to bring the required change? Maharashtra government has come up with a welfare package for poor workers. Yet, these are restricted to registered workers.