And Their Silent Struggle To Make A Living

Working women face many issues at the workplace. Interviewing them is a challenge because they are reluctant to discuss the issues. You might meet even a dead end if you approach directly. This is also true of men but to a lesser degree.

Realizing this, I met Vishal Bagul who works for Rashtriya Mazdoor Sangh, which is led by Mr. Sunil Shinde, a well-known Trade Union leader in Pune. He is an engineer and a well-read trade union official and activist. His sharp mind helps him cull out core issues from the heap of information.

We went to a hospital. A woman security guard was waiting to receive us there. Another woman security guard joined her. A few chairs were placed near the parking lot; we sat down there.  

“I have been working here for over eight years, and I prefer night shift. Each shift has its unique set of patients. This hospital handles Dog bite cases, TB and Maternity cases.”

“And this hospital issues ‘Mayat Pass’ – the pass to take away the dead body to crematorium.”

“The problem is that many patients come drunk. If a drunk person is bitten by a dog, the hospital can’t treat him because the injections are not to be given to a drunk person. That’s the medical rule. The patients do not understand it and argue endlessly. We intervene if necessary.”

“It is quite common to get drunk visitors who come to collect ‘Mayat Pass.’ That poses a problem. Many people, particularly in the lower strata of the society, join funeral procession only after a drink or two.”

“Many people who come to this hospital have exceptionally low income; some could be street vendors. They are terribly malnourished. A woman was brought here in an auto for delivery. She delivered a baby in the auto and died.”

“It was her fifth baby, and the baby survived. We pacified people. We extend as much help as possible.”

“What was the situation during the Corona?”

“Not all patients were aware if they were infected. Some discovered it after coming here. We were given only masks and gloves.”

“I was infected in the second wave. We were given treatment, but our pay was cut for the days we were absent.

“You don’t get leave?”

“We don’t get leave. We are given leave pay which is now included in our monthly pay. For many years we were not allowed leave at all. We made representations through our union, and now we get leave pay.”

“Oh!”

“My pay was Rs 7200 pm, when I joined in 2017. Now I get about Rs 21500 after all deductions.”

“Gross pay of about Rs 25,000 pm, it must be.”

“Without the union we would not have got even this much pay”

“But the permanent guards get Rs 65 to 70 thousand pm. We are doing the same job, but we get less than a third of their pay.”

“They had not covered us even under ESIS (Employees State Insurance Scheme) till 2020. It is only after our union made representations that we got that benefit.

“But we are now out of ESI Scheme because the scheme covers people who draw less than Rs 21 thousand pm.”

(Important Note: Contractors add leave pay, that is the monetary value of leave days to the wages of employees. They also add bonuses. This inflates their monthly wages, and it often results in ‘showing’ the wages more than Rs 21 thousand per month. Employees drawing a wage more than Rs 21 thousand per month get excluded from the ESI Scheme, which results in the contractor saving ‘Employer’s contribution.’ Simultaneously the employee loses an important social security benefit. In our blogpost titled ‘To Crematorium for Work’ also this pernicious practice is highlighted. Read about it here )

“Sir, they enter in a contract to provide services to the hospital. And a contractor files a Tender to do it, so he has to show some cost reduction to win it.”

“They typically seek tenders just before Diwali. Usually in September. This means the old contractor does not give us Diwali Bonus because he is quitting and the new has no reason to give because he was not there in the previous year.”

“Change of contractor poses many problems for us. Our services get transferred from one contractor to the other. Our concerns are ignored. For instance, we did not get arrears of pay of five months.”

“This has been taken to the Court now. Our pay gets delayed routinely. Usually, we get paid any day between 11^th to 15^th day.”

“Why? The law requires that you must be paid on time.”

“We were discussing change of the contractor for providing services to certain establishments of the Municipality. The first thing they do is to introduce a condition to remove the existing guards. For example, once a contractor said that he would not employ guards who are not educated at least up to 8^th Standard. Recently a contractor wanted to remove all those above 45 years of age.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s the way he can introduce his people in the service. Some of them are simply on the rolls but they never attend duty. It seems that they are engaged for the party work.”

“There is a lot of malpractice in recruitment.”

“On one occasion when they changed the contractor, he removed us from service, yet we continued to report to work, and we actually worked. But they did not pay us for our five months’ work. The matter is in court. We said give us at least four months pay, but they refused.”

“How about Provident Fund contributions? Are these deducted and deposited?”

“Yes, it seems so. There is a method to check one’s contribution. You have to give a ‘missed call’ to a certain number and back comes the PF contribution details on your WhatsApp. But of late it is not working. We do not know why.”

“We were not getting details (various components) of the pay, but this new contractor is giving it.”

(Note: Contractors change but employees remain in a given job continuously. For example, a woman security guard would work for say, ten years, at a hospital but she would serve under different contractors as the hospital changes the contractors periodically. This helps a contractor deprive an employee of gratuity, which is actually a substantial benefit. The system is thus exploitative. There are judgments which say that even in such a case the Principal Employer is liable to pay gratuity, – See: ‘Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay V. Tanaji Babaji Lad & Ors’. – However, the popular notion is that if you do not work for five years under an employer you will not be entitled to gratuity and such a notion is erroneous.)

“We get deployed to work at any of the establishment. That could be at BalGandharv Rang mandir, Shivaji Statue, Gardens or ‘Kondwada’. They visit at odd hours to check if we are on duty. If we are not found at the appointed place, they mark us absent, even if we have gone to the toilet.”

“There is no toilet available at such places except at the BalGandharv.”

“One woman guard used the toilet of an adjacent society building and the watchman there locked her in!”

“There are many issues of working people, women in particular, but people do not come together. The Union has given us some reprieve but more needs to be done. And it can’t be done effectively unless people unite under one umbrella.”

“And if the Government authorities act to curb the malpractices, but that also will not happen”

“True. Who will bell the cat?”

  *   *   *

We closed our discussion, thanked the women and moved to another place. It is a government office. It is well maintained and is spotlessly clean.

They took us to the conference room. Three women workers met us. The women were housekeeping workers who worked there for many years.

This group of women workers were happy because they were treated very well by the office staff. They worked there for ten years and the first five years under a certain contractor. The housekeeping contract was then handed over to another contractor.

Again, they were not paid gratuity. I asked if they received gratuity to which the response was ‘What is it, sir?’ Not paying gratuity is ‘Wage Theft,’ but who cares?

They received a net salary of Rs 18400. And they received their payment by the 10^th or 15^th day of the month; it was credited to their bank accounts.  

The women housekeeping workers had school going children and the school fees varied from Rs 5000 pa to Rs 14000 pa. They had put them in ‘Semi-English’ school meaning some subjects were taught in English. That (hopefully) improved their English language skills.

The best part of employment, according to them, was the coverage under the ESI Scheme which covered illness. They did not have to spend on medicines. But they were not getting any leave with pay.

The law provides for leave with pay, but contract workers do not get it.

But the unhappy aspect was that their husbands were not working. This is quite common in the low income group of society. Effectively, the women earn and run the house. She cooks at home, sweeps office premises and worries about how to make two ends meet. She runs home single handedly, slogs hard, the husband enjoys his freedom and liquor.

  *   *   *

This aspect of woman running the home is common. Misrepresentations are made about employment at the time of marriage. After marriage the woman understands the new world of responsibilities and liabilities. Birth of children adds to her woes.

They get employed in unskilled jobs and get paid minimum wages. The BPCL contract workers case (See The Tragic Life of Contract Workers At BPCL ) captures this reality.

The women workers get paid minimum wages all through their career, so effectively there is no increase in their real wages. The education cost is already beyond the reach of these workers. No leave with pay. No gratuity. Social security benefits denied by clever arrangement of salary structure. And lack of understanding of rights otherwise they would not have asked ‘What is Gratuity, Sir?’

With the situation as it is, one will rarely find a family moving upwards on the social ladder. They are destined to be at the lowest rung of the social ladder. Forever.

This is the harsh and unfortunate reality of women’s employment and exploitation through contractors. And the Government sits there as a silent spectator. They think it is not their responsibility to enforce the law. More so after ‘doing away of the Inspection Raj.’ This situation is an avatar of the ‘Bystander Syndrome.’

Haven’t they built the invisible chains for exploitation?

PS: Feature Image by KTMPHOTOGRAPHY from Pixabay

Vivek S Patwardhan

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” All matter copyrighted.