India has no room for its wandering builders

India has no room for its wandering builders A recent report in The Hindu on the violation of labour laws at a massive construction site belonging to the Army Welfare Housing Organisation in Bangalore raises yet again the repeated neglect of regulations relating to the employment and welfare of workers by construction companies in India. According to the Planning Commission's XI-Plan document, employment in the construction and new build sector in India has witnessed a steady increase from 14. 6 million in 1995 to nearly 31. 157 per day. This openly flouted the provisions of the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act (1979), the Building and Other Construction Workers' Act and the Minimum Wages Act (1948). This shocking story of exploitation in India's IT capital became public only when a handful of workers from Chhattisgarh managed to escape from the work site and were put in touch with a labour union which in turn produced the emaciated and frightened workers before the media for their testimony. Violations The contract in this case had been awarded to a company, B. L. Makeshift tents housing migrant families are a common sight in almost all big cities. The contractor The construction industry - even in its globalised avatar - relies on archaic systems of operation, such as the use of contractors for the supply of labour. The Contractor Raj, if one may call it, was a prevalent feature of the colonial mode of labour recruitment and production. 5 million in 2005. Getting construction companies to follow the law of the land regarding fulfilment of basic rights related to employment, safety and welfare of workers still seems a distant dream. The government, despite repeated reminders, seems to be looking away. Under existing labour laws, the penalties imposed for the non-execution of responsibilities like maintenance of proper muster roll, non-payment of minimum wages, etc. Rights under the law Construction workers in India are guaranteed certain forms of protection and rights under a broad canvas of labour laws. These include the right to minimum wages, overtime payments, weekly offs, specific allowances in case of migrant workers, housing and other social security benefits. As employers, construction companies are legally responsible for providing protection to workers. It is interesting to note that while the share of well trained professionals in the business has gone down from 15. 3 per cent in 1995 to 10. 5 per cent in 2005, the relative proportion of unskilled personnel has registered a significant increase from 73 per cent in 1995 to 82. This multiple chain of operations creates its own problems of regulation. Long working hours with no extra payments for overtime and non-payment of minimum wages were widely reported. In the course of the hearings, approximately 140 deaths of workers at construction sites were reported. The Bangalore episode has once again shown the extent of exploitation that still exists. are relatively miniscule - ranging between Rs. 500-Rs. 2,000 - and not much of a deterrent for erring companies. Given this, the attempts made by the EPFO to depend on forensic sciences to determine the extent of criminal misdeed, are indeed commendable. Constituting an important segment of the overall services industry (seven per cent of total GDP), and recording an annual growth of over 10 per cent over the last five years, the construction industry is one of the biggest employers of labour in India. 50 per week as wages, as against the promised Rs. While there is little doubt that globalisation has contributed to increased business opportunities for the construction industry, things have not improved for the workers, who constitute the life and soul of the industry. However, this institution not only continues, but has actually deepened with the boom in the building industry as contractors and sub-contractors are employed even in small projects. During the course of a Public Interest Litigation filed by the People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) in January 2010, on the violation of workers' rights at the Commonwealth Games construction sites, a Delhi High Court-appointed Monitoring Committee submitted a report which documented the almost abysmal conditions in which the workers were forced to work and live at various sites. Yet, government agencies turned a blind eye. Even the Shunglu committee that was constituted to look into allegations of corruption, failed to include the case of labour law violations despite repeated requests within its larger mandate of looking at the financial improprieties conducted in the course of the Commonwealth Games. Migrant workers in general constitute a vulnerable social category. With little capacity to bargain for their constitutional rights as workers, they are forced to work and live under conditions that are practically subhuman. However, while the majority of those employed in construction activities constitute migrants, this Act is rarely invoked. The national level data provided in the 23rd Report of the Standing Committee on Labour (December 2011) shows the number of licensed contractors or registered establishments as exceptionally low. From data gathered from 22 States, only 285 licensed contractors and 240 registered establishments were recorded as employing migrant labour. India has no room for its wandering builders Trade News selected by Local Linkup on 01/05/2012