New Delhi: Several trade unions and civil society organisations are commemorating the Labour Day on May 1 at a time when the 2024 Lok Sabha polls are underway in India. While each of the political parties are eyeing the support of the working classes in the electoral contest, how many of them have given prominence to workers’ rights and their conditions?
In different circumstances, this may have been a question that all political parties would have prominently made it a point of engagement – but not in the naya Bharat, where selling the dream of a Viksit Bharat to the country’s aspirational middle and lower classes have proven to be a successful political experiment, most of which has come at the cost of addressing fundamental concerns of the working poor.
After years of neglecting workers’ issues, the Congress has promised what it calls “Shramik Nyay” or justice for workers. In a highly polarised political environment that is fixated on the “Hindu-Muslim” binary, Congress’s five ‘guarantees’ to workers are like a breath of fresh air, but unfortunately have not received attention by the media and other influencers.
Congress’s five ‘guarantees’; BJP’s ‘samman’ for workers
The Congress has promised to increase the minimum wage to Rs 400 per day, which is currently a measly Rs 176 per day. It has also promised to provide a comprehensive health insurance with a cover of Rs 25 lakh on the lines of former Congress-led Rajasthan government’s Chiranjeevi scheme, along with life and accident insurance for workers.
It has also said that if elected, it would bring an employment guarantee law, social security pension, and a safety net for urban gig workers. More importantly, the party has promised to end the contractualisation of work in core government functions that will create stable and secure jobs for workers.
In contrast, the BJP has promised workers “respect”, but stayed away from addressing their social security concerns. It has said that the Union government will ensure a periodic review of the National Floor Wages. The last time it had engaged in such an exercise was in 2019, when it had turned down the recommendation of the Anoop Satpathy committee. The committee had proposed to hike the minimum wage to Rs 375 per day. The Modi government had reasoned that such a hike may burden the employers with huge financial implications.
BJP’s other promises focus on integrating the existing social security schemes with the digital initiatives of the Centre, organise workers in the formal sector, and migrant workers, gig workers, auto, taxi and truck drivers in the e-shram platform. The saffron party has promised special trains for migrant workers. It has also promised to provide loans, under the PM Svanidhi scheme,’ to street vendors, and create ‘modern facilities’ on highways for truck drivers.
‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikaas’, except workers
Several pointers have indicated that the last decade has been one of the worst for India’s working population in recent times.
Renowned economists Jean Dreze and Reetika Khera recently pointed out that real wages (adjusted to inflation) for agricultural labourers declined by 1.3% from 2014 to 2024, according to the Union agriculture ministry’s own data. Wages for brick kiln workers also became stagnant during the same period. Comparatively, the increase in real wages for agricultural labourers was 6.8% every year between 2004 and 2014 during the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance government.
The Union government’s Periodic Labour Force Series (PLFS) survey also showed that real wages have remained stagnant between 2017 and 2022 among salaried workers, casual workers, and those who are self-employed.
The abysmal wages of the working classes who occupy the lowest position in the earnings ladder is shown by the data point released by The State of Inequality in India report released by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister – if your earning is Rs 25,000 per month, you are a part of the top 10% in the workforce.
The minimum wage for an unskilled worker in India, as prescribed by the Centre, is a measly Rs 176 per day. Such is the apathy for the workers that the Union government turned down the proposed daily wage of Rs 375 per day by the Anoop Satpathy committee in 2019 because of possible financial implications for the employers.
These are only a few pointers to signal the level of neglect that the working classes have faced over the years. Over 90% of India’s workforce is in the informal sector. That their working conditions are poor will be an understatement. Workers are entirely dependent on the mercy of the contractors, and are effectively bonded to them. Even the promised minimum wages are not paid properly to workers.
The privatisation drive of the government in every sector has led to outsourcing of jobs which has made permanent employment almost rare. When faced with exploitation, the employers evade all accountability as most of the work is commissioned through contractors.
To top this, they have faced a situation where even such exploitative jobs are not available to them, as the unemployment rate has touched an all-time high.
Workers: The biggest victim of cancel culture
Poor wages aside, the problem lies in the way workers are seen as the least important cog in the wheels of profit-oriented production. For instance, demonetisation and unfavourable business conditions led over six lakhs factories to shut shop, causing many more workers to lose their formal and informal jobs. Despite such incessant shelling on workers, workers’ concerns remain the least-discussed topic among influencers.
The LPG (Liberalisation, Privatisation, Globalisation) policy adopted by India has nearly killed the possibility of any talk on labour rights in the political discourse. A large number of economists constantly silence those who raise the issue by hammering down economic growth indices – considered now as the only markers of development. The working classes, the primary levers of production, have resultantly become slaves in India’s growth story.
The Congress-led UPA government was tied to the idea of LPG policy but was at least careful enough to promote the idea of “inclusive growth” in its policy documents that attempted to mitigate, even if symbolically, worries of both formal and informal labourers. Programmes like MGNREGA, Right to Health, Right To Education and the National Food Security Act were meant to give at least minimal social security to the working classes.
But the BJP’s wholehearted commitment to privatisation has pushed most social security measures to the corner, even as the Narendra Modi government has delivered doles to give the working classes an illusion of a responsive governance. However, the success of his schemes that provide as little as free gas cylinders, ration, toilets, housing, or even an annual allowance of Rs 6,000 to farmers only goes on to signal the level of penury that exists in India.
None of these schemes secure jobs, fair wages, or improved maternity and child nutrition benefits, or social security pensions and other forms of social security that could help the workers and farmers to lead a dignified life. In fact, the budgets for most of these social security benefits have declined drastically over the last decade. On the whole, Modi’s most-advertised welfare schemes make them even more dependent on a charitable model of governance, and helps the government build a captive vote bank – something that the BJP proudly calls laabharthis.
So much has been the insouciance that the worsening conditions of workers across India has become a concerning social phenomenon that almost everyone in a position of privilege has chosen to ignore.
The run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections has brought about a faint glimmer of hope for the working classes, as the principal opposition party the Congress has devoted a full section in its manifesto, while the BJP has taken care to introduce promises that may at least introduce cosmetic changes in their lives.
On May Day, as we remember workers’ long struggle to secure their basic minimum rights, one must ask should workers in developing economies be condemned to work for mere survival, and never seek a dignified life. India’s growth story has been noticed globally. But our nation will truly progress when we learn to treat issues of our workers with a little more sensitivity, and little less contempt.
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