UP & MP (with more states to follow) have prioritised economic growth over workers' right to life thru moves to remove most labour protection laws- leaving the large section of India's marginalised workforce without the bare minimum required for survival. Read this thread (1/n)
Safety standards at worksites will be removed & employers will face no penalties for hazardous worksites where death, disease, disability are already common. Migrant workers are hired in dangerous industries - their right to life stands suspended (2/n)
Workers' rights to collectively bargain against violations on their life and livelihood will be scrapped - they cannot unionise/strike to demand better conditions from employers who will have unilateral right to hire & fire, exploit & condemn workers to toxic terms of work (3/n)
In many states, they will be forced to work for 12 hours with no overtime pay. This legislation just normalises the devaluation of labour of workers who already work well over the previous 8 hour statutory limit & the extraction of their minds & bodies for profit (4/n)
1 in 3 workers in India are not even paid minimum wages, with wage laws being actively flouted. Now 12 hour workday will be new normal with meager ~Rs. 300 wages & no guarantee that they will receive this, as wage protection laws have been weakened through Wage Code, 2019 (5/n)
It comes as no shock to an economic model like India's, which has persistently made workers pay the cost for its growth, which accumulates in the hands of its privileged classes - to produce cheaply for export markets & remain competitive for incoming foreign investments (6/n)
Cheap & exploitable labour is India's USP & comparative advantage in global markets- so easy it is for employers to cut costs that unsafe worksites cause over 48,000 labour deaths annually (underestimation) mostly in high growth sectors (construction & manufacturing) (7/n)
Labour markets thrive on discrimination - informal & migrant workforce is dominated by historically oppressed groups - landless, Adivasi, Dalit, religious minorities, as well as women & children who provide invisibilised, devalued labour which is rarely accounted for. (8/n)
These groups also tend to be migrants who are forced to move to urban areas for wages, because their traditional livelihoods have been destroyed by the same privileged classes which now employ them in cities. Extraction & dispossession is continuous, rampant & historical (9/n)
Migrants & marginalised groups have low bargaining power - they cannot negotiate with employers for bare minimum rights, do not have access to social networks, unions or even state to question exploitative wages & work conditions - precisely why they are hired by industry (10/n)
The fundamental question must be answered - Who will end up paying the price for economic revival & growth post lockdown, and who will thrive on the gains from this growth? (11/11)
@IndiaWpc
@IndiaWpc
