INDIA STRIKES
Tamil Nadu: TASMAC Headload Workers Demand Wage Hike; Plan Indefinite Strike if Demand Unmet
At the protest held in Salem. Image courtesy: CITU, Tamil Nadu
The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU)-affiliated TASMAC Head Loaders Association demanded that the management increase wages from Rs 5.50 to Rs 9 and from Rs 4 to Rs 8 for every carton of liquor. They unload cartons from the breweries into the godowns and load them for supply from the godowns.
The Association’s state president, R Venkatapathy, addressed the demonstration held in Namakkal. He said, “Headload workers get wage hikes every two years. At present, three years have passed, and there is no sign of a wage hike.”
The Association pointed out that prices of all commodities have shot up in the past few years, including the price of alcohol sold by TASMAC. The headload workers directly fall under the purview of the state-run corporation, but they are not government employees and do not have job security or any benefits. These workers are not the same as the workers doing loading and unloading work at the TASMAC liquor depots.
The state-owned Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) has a monopoly over wholesale and retail vending of alcoholic beverages. It controls the Indian Made Foreign Liquor trade in the state.
MINISTER’S DIRECTION ‘NOT FOLLOWED’
S Muthusamy, the minister in charge of prohibition, excise, and molasses, has directed the TASMAC management to increase the minimum wages for headload workers. Yet, the management has refused to act accordingly, and this has angered the workers. The protests were directed against the management, condemning their attitude.
Venkatapathy said, “We held several protests in the past year and had meetings with the managing director of TASMAC. We also met Minister Muthusamy and urged him to take appropriate action to increase wages. Following this, the minister instructed the managing director of TASMAC to immediately talk to the liquor manufacturers and take steps to increase the wages.”
“Even after these efforts, when our union leaders met the managing director of TASMAC on November 1, there seems to have been no arrangements made for a wage hike. It is not acceptable that the TASMAC management did not take appropriate action despite the minister’s instructions,” he added.
He further stated, “The minister should immediately intervene and find a solution to increase wages.” The Association announced that if their demands are not addressed by the Tamil Nadu government and the TASMAC administration, they will go on an indefinite strike from November 29.
Tamil Nadu Spinning Mills Strike as raw Materials Turn Costlier, Yarn Gets Cheaper
Representational Image. Image Courtesy: PTI
Open-end (OE) spinning mills around western Tamil Nadu’s Tirupur and Coimbatore are unable to withstand the rising cost of raw material, decreasing yarn price and market slowdown. Urging the government to control the prices, more than 600 spinning mills halted production on Tuesday till November 30.
The Open End Spinning Mill Association (OSMA) has also demanded an immediate reduction in electricity tariff, hiked in September. MSMEs had also opposed the new tariff.
OSMA president G Arulmozhi told NewsClick that “open-end mills procure cotton waste from spinning mills to produce 25 lakh kg of grey cotton yarn”.
“We produce 15 lakh kg of coloured cotton yarn daily using plastic PET bottle fibre and post-garment cutting wastes. We send these to power loom and handloom units in the state, who manufacture products like bedsheets, lungis and towels.”
Everyday, one crore metre of grey cotton yarn is produced by OE mills. The strike will result in production loss of Rs 1,000 crore and no wages for workers.
INCREASE IN PRODUCTION COST
The prices of grey cotton yarn and coloured cotton yarn have shot up.
“The cost of one kg of cotton is Rs 160. Based on this, the cost of waste cotton should have been Rs 97 per kg, not Rs 115,” Arulmozhi said.
“The cost of electricity and raw materials has increased manifold in the last five years. If the government does not reduce the electricity tariff, the textile industry will close down,” he added.
OSMA demanded that the Centre immediately stop cotton waste export to control the price of raw material. The Association has also demanded the scrapping of the 11% tax levied on cotton import, which affects OE mills, and relaxation in quality-control norms for synthetic fibres.
“More than 600 open-end spinning mills produce yarn worth Rs 60 crore daily. For the last six months, only 50% of the mills are operational,” Arulmozhi said.
“We stopped production as there will be losses if we continue to run the mills. Thirty mills have already stopped production.”
OE spinning mills provides 30% of the yarn used in textile production in Tamil Nadu.
After several rounds of talks, mill owners decided to halt production. They had already sent most workers to their hometowns and reduced production by half before halting it completely.
UNABLE TO COMPETE IN MARKET
Many states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana, Bihar and Punjab have announced new textile policies and give 50% subsidy to textile mills. Tamil Nadu mills are unable to compete with other states due to the lack of incentives and unable to produce clothes at low cost.
Arulmozhi pointed that OE mills in Panipat, Haryana, sell yarn at 30% lower prices compared to those in Tamil Nadu.
OE yarn manufacturers also claim that textile production is affected due to the inability of exporting goods. Domestic textile production has been affected as fabric is produced and sold at low prices compared to rival countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam.
WB: Woes of Beedi Workers Continue in Murshidabad District
Representational image. | image courtesy: Flickr
On November 8, 2023, the joint action committee of Beedi Workers' Union organised an open convention in the Dhulian region of the Murshidabad district.
The convention demanded a tripartite meeting between the joint action committee, Beedi Merchants' Association of Dhulian and the government of West Bengal.
The joint action committee has been raising the demand of minimum wages for beedi workers, as per government schedule. It includes representatives from the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), United Trade Union Congress (UTUC), All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), Federation of Indian Trade Unions (FITU), All India United Trade Union Centre (AIUTUC) and All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU).
The labour unions of Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have not joined the movement.
Debasish Roy, the general secretary of the All India Beedi Workers' Federation of India, informed NewsClick that in West Bengal, 22 lakh people are engaged in the profession of beedi rolling.
"In the Murshidabad district, the number of beedi workers is about 17 lakh. The wages of around two-third of the beedi workers of West Bengal are fixed through the settlement between the workers' union and Beedi Merchants' Association of Dhulian."
The beedi industry of West Bengal is being run from the Jangipur subdivision of Murshidabad.
According to the CITU leadership, about nine lakh beedi workers are from Jangipur subdivision. About two lakh beedi workers from Jharkhand also work under the companies that operate from Jangipur .
A beedi packet consisting of 20 beedis is sold for Rs 12 in the market, pegging the price of 1000 bidis at Rs 600 even by the lowest estimates. The practice of 'Patti' is not standardised in Murshidabad.
Interestingly, according to the 2011 Census, the total number of inhabitants of the district is 71.04 lakhs, of which 17 lakh adults are related to the beedi trade. Most of the owners of the beedi companies are millionaires and directly related to the ruling party as MPs and MLAs. The local MP is also a Beedi company owner, as is the MLA. Even the Zilla chairperson of the Murshidabad district is the owner of a beedi-manufacturing unit.
Amongst the beedi manufacturers, Pataka Beedi is the largest one, with a huge mansion as its head office in Kolkata; its products are even exported to the Gulf countries.
Khatun, who works as a beedi worker, does not have a PF account. Of the 17 lakh bidi workers in Murshidabad, only three lakh have PF registrations in their names.
"Even if I have a high fever or am extremely unwell, I still have to carry on with the work of beedi binding seven days a week with whatever leaves we can manage from the company," she said.
Khatun binds beedi for a contractor of Noor company, whose owner Khalilur Rahman is the local MP from the Jangipur Lok Sabha constituency.
MD Azad, a beedi worker who is also the president of the All India Bidi Workers' Federation (AIBWF) - Murshidabad unit, said that the exploitation of workers by the bidi manufacturers is coupled with the apathetic attitude of the Central and the state governments, which adds to the problems of the beedi workers in the state. As most beedi company owners are leaders of the locally ruling TMC, the state government, where the same party is in power, always sides with the owners, he said.
The government also has a long history of dilly-dallying when it comes to signing the wage agreements in the sector as by government rules, the minimum wage should be Rs 276, Azad added.
In the Murshidabad district, the minimum wage has been fixed at Rs 178. However, the bribes such as patti and the practice of giving less leaves to the beedi workers for binding bring the actual wage down to the Rs 130-140 level.
"We are fighting against these, but the state government is maintaining a stoic silence over this issue," Azad said.
"In the last few years, the Central government has collected Rs 1,164 crore as cess from the beedi manufacturing companies, but the privileges that we were supposed to get from the cess amount are slowly being withdrawn," the AIBWF president said.
As per the social security network of the beedi workers, they are supposed to get an allowance for entertainment like going to sea sides, house building, scholarships, and medical treatment.
"Except for the scholarship, and to some extent, the medical allowances, all the other schemes have been withdrawn by the Central government even though it gets crores of rupees as cess every year from the sector," he said in disdain.
There are ten big hospitals in the country for treating beedi workers, of which the biggest is located at Tarapur of Murshidabad district. However, the hospital does not have adequate facilities for treatment and even ECG and USG machines are not active for want of technicians.
There is also not a sufficient number of doctors and nurses in the hospital, which is located on 70 bighas of land at Tarapur in the Dhulian block of Murshidabad. Many of the 292 welfare dispensaries the country has are situated in Murshidabad but lack medicine stocks.
WB: Workers' Wages Due, 5 Tea Estates in Alipurduar ‘Abruptly Shuttered’ Before Diwali
Kolkata: Ahead of the Diwali festival, five tea gardens were suddenly closed in Alipurduar amid workers' dissatisfaction with wages. As a result, about 9,000 permanent and temporary workers and their families face a dark Diwali this year.
The workers are angry and upset and have demanded that the administration should open the tea gardens immediately.
Labour leader Bikash Mahali told People's Reporter that “the condition of tea workers has deteriorated since the current Central or state government came to power. Both the governments are not doing anything on the issue of social security of the workers, as compared to the erstwhile Left Front government. Today's plantation owners pay nothing but wages. They do not deposit provident fund money. Many workers have not received their gratuity even after years of retirement.”
Demanding that pending wages be paid, Mahali said: “Since the next three months are dry, the owners are closing the garden unfairly so that they don’t have to pay salaries. Closed plantation workers are leaving the state for other states in search of work. We are fighting against it.”
Another tea garden labour leader Bidyut Gun said “the union had discussed the opening of the garden with the labour department. The Joint Labour Commissioner said the tripartite meeting will be called before Diwali. However, the possibility of having a representative of the owner in that meeting is low, the Joint Labour Commissioner informed us.”
He said, “If the representative of the owner does not come to the tripartite meeting, no solution will be found. However, on behalf of the workers, we will attend the Labour Department meeting,”
Vikas Mohali, a tea garden worker, said that owners had stopped work in five gardens, including Kalchini. As a result, at least 6,000 permanent workers and 3,000 temporary workers had been hit.
He said that the gardens are closed for leaf picking from November to the first week of March. In that period, only the work of garden maintenance is done. If the garden is open, the owners would have to pay wages. So, they have decided to close the gardens. However, they promised to open the garden again at the meeting of the Labour Department in March.
Mohali said that during the Left Front government, the Labour Department took steps to protect the interests of garden workers. “Now, the opposite is happening. Garden workers are being cheated,” he added.
Meanwhile, no arrangement has been made by the state administration for ensuring some relief to workers in the closed gardens. Workers of Kalchini, Dalsingpara, Raimatang, Ramjhora, and Dalmor plantations are now moving out as temporary labourers in nearby plantations, said labour union sources. Some are trying to make ends meet by working as construction workers in nearby villages.
Puja Kharia, atea garden workers, said, "The days of starvation and half-starvation are coming again.Workers in the closed gardens rely on vegetables and flowers picked from the surrounding bushes. That is how they fill their stomachs. The little rice and flour in the ration do not last for a whole month”.
Dipak Baraik said there were six members in his family. “Everyone depends on my earnings. With earnings stopped, there is not enough for food, for children's education."
The workers were upset that neither the Trinamool government in the state nor the Bharatiya Janata Party at the Centre care about the opening of closed gardens, and are indulging in blame games. Union Minister John Barla, who represents Alipurduar in the Lok Sabha, has been firing a barrage of blames at the state government’s door, while TMC leaders say they have reported the problem to state Labour Minister Malay Ghatak.
When asked, Alipurduar District Magistrate R. Bimala said the district administration was trying to provide rice and relief to the workers of the closed tea gardens.
Without paying one month's wages to 2003 permanent workers of the Kalchini tea plantation, the authorities just left after hanging a notice of suspension of work, said workers.
At a time when the entire state is celebrating the festival season, darkness has descended on three tea gardens of Dooars. The owners have locked up two tea gardens in Madarihat and Kalchini in Alipurduar for two consecutive days. It is alleged that after workers of the Mujnai tea plantation in Madarihat demanded a 20% Durga Puja bonus, the owners ran away after locking the garden. As a result, 1,000 workers of the Mujnai tea plantation are jobless.
The Raimatang tea plantation in Kalchini block was closed, affecting about 1,200 workers. As these two tea estates in the district were shut down within 24 hours of each other, the workers went into panic. The workers claim that despite being angry about the bonus, they did not stop work. Yet, without any discussion, the authorities closed the gardens without any notice.
Bihar: Anganwadi Workers Protest, Demand Honorarium Hike, Govt Employee Status
Security personnel in a scuffle with Anganwadi workers protesting outside the Bihar Legislative Assembly, in Patna, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023. Image Courtesy: PTI
Patna: Amid the ongoing winter session of the Bihar Assembly, hundreds of Anganwadi sevikas and sahayikas (helpers) took to the streets and staged a protest in Patna on Tuesday.
The protesters tried to gherao Bihar Assembly as part of their protest demanding that the state government fulfil their five-point demand charter. They threatened to intensify their stir in the coming days if the Mahagathbandan government led by Nitish Kumar failed to fulfil their demands.
The protestors’ main demands include an increase in their monthly honorarium and government employee status for them. They are also demanding an increase in the
retirement age of the workers and a lump sum of Rs 5 lakh for Anganwadi sevikas and Rs 3 lakh for sahayikas.
Heavy security forces deployed by the state government stopped the sloganeering protestors near the state Assembly’s main gate when they tried to gherao the House. Police used water cannons and lathicharge to disperse the protestors.
According to leaders of the protest, during the police
action, some of them fell down and sustained injuries when police used water cannons.
“Our monthly honorarium is very low and we demand at least double the amount”, a protesting Anganwadi sevika Aparna Devi told Newsclick.
Another protestor, Savita Devi, said the state government should fulfil our demands because during the Bihar Assembly polls, none other than RJD (Rashtriya Janata Dal) leader and now Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav had promised to double monthly honorarium of Anganwadi sevikas and sahayikas if voted to power. “More than a year after he is in power, nothing has happened to our demands,” she said.
At present, the government is paying a monthly honorarium of Rs 6,500 to Anganwadi sevikas and Rs 5,900 to sahayikas.
later, Left parties, includng CPI, CPI(M) and CPI(ML) MLAs as well as Opposition BJP MLAs raised the issue of police action against Anganwadi protesters in the House.
In the past two years, thousands of Anganwadi sevikas and sahayikas, who are lowly paid contractual workers, have repeatedly protested, demanding a hike in honorarium,
government employee status and pension.
In Bihar, there are 2.15 lakh sevikas and sahayikas in nearly 1.14 lakh Anganwadi centres.
Last month, the state government increased the monthly honorarium of thousands of Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) workers, after repeated protests by the scheme workers. The honorarium was hiked from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,500/month and the it was also demanded that
the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government should increase their honorarium under the National Health Mission.
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