Free labour for govt

The government earns Rs 70,000 cr off its six million social workforce by flouting labour laws

The government saves close to Rs 70,000 crore each year by underpaying or not paying six million workers it employs to implement its social sector schemes. This is according to a calculation by the Centre for Indian Trade Unions (Citu).

These workers subsidise the government by being denied minimum wages and the 'worker' status.

The victims are Anganwadi workers and helpers, mid-day meal cooks, Ashas and Yashodas (the last two are the latest categories of social workers added to help the government achieve its social development targets). The mid-day meal workers are the lowest-paid and there are 2.7 million of them earning Rs 1,000 a month from the Ministry of Human Resource Development.
 

According to Haryana's Citu activist working for mid-day meal workers, Jai Bhagwan, though they were meant to just cook food for school children daily, they did all the work done by a Class-IV employee, such as cleaning the school, being at the beck and call of teachers for all the work they asked them to do. The Haryana government recently provided plates for all children, and now, the mid-day meal workers have to clean the plates, too. They stay in school for the whole day from 8 am. The workers have no choice but to obey orders or they might lose their jobs, says Bhagwan. Also, their wages come whenever the government chooses to give them. It may even take a whole year.

For example, MDM workers in Panchkula district of Haryana went to collect their wages for the previous year in April and were sent away with just three months' wages. "What option do they have?" asks Bhagwan.

They get neither the minimum wages nor maternity benefits, insurance or pension. The Haryana government recently agreed to their demand to allow three months of unpaid maternity leave. The exceptions are Kerala and Tamil Nadu, where the state shells out money to ensure these workers get more than Rs 1,000, if not the minimum wages. In Tamil Nadu, they have been recognised as state government employees, says Citu activist A R Sindhu.

The Central government, instead of correcting itself, has added to the harassment of these women by its recent decision that women whose children are not in schools will not be eligible to be mid-day meal workers.

This is being used by school and village leaders as an excuse to retrench existing workers. Asks Veena Gupta, who works for mid-day meal workers in Uttar Pradesh: "Why does not the same rule apply to teachers, head masters or anyone else?" She says the state allows annual renewal of the contract with these workers and so this year, many of them are losing jobs because they don't have theirs children in schools.

While the government talks about direct benefit transfer, it is yet to open accounts for its own workers under the Central schemes. MDM workers are at the mercy of school principals or Pradhans who give them their wages in cash often keeping a small share of it to themselves, says Gupta.

Take the case of the new group of social workers called Yashodas, recruited under the National Rural Health Mission by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. These women are supposed to take care of new-born babies in hospitals. They are paid Rs 3,000 a month (or half of minimum wages) and are expected to be in hospital for 12 hours! Yashodas are expected to do almost every work in the hospital and can refuse only at their own peril, point out activists in Haryana.

The issue was taken up at the 45th Indian Labour Conference that concluded on May 18. But, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who inaugurated it, was silent on the labour law violations that are going on under the Centre-sponsored schemes.

The government, instead of being a model employer, has chosen to be a law breaker when it comes to these workers.