Massive Workers’ Protest against Loot of their Savings by Government of Big Bourgeoisie
On 18-19 April, about 1.25 lakh garment workers in Bengaluru, one-quarter of the total workforce of this industry in this city, poured out angrily onto the streets. They were protesting the NDA government’s notification restricting the right of workers to withdraw the full amount of their Provident Fund before attaining the age of 58.
Massive Workers’ Protest against Loot of their Savings by Government of Big Bourgeoisie
On 18-19 April, about 1.25 lakh garment workers in Bengaluru, one-quarter of the total workforce of this industry in this city, poured out angrily onto the streets. They were protesting the NDA government’s notification restricting the right of workers to withdraw the full amount of their Provident Fund before attaining the age of 58.
More than 80% of these workers were women, whose income is the sole support of their families. They defied the lathis, teargas and bullets fired at them by the police and special forces, and gave tit for tat. Over 100 were injured, some seriously.
On the second day, the garment workers were joined by thousands more workers from engineering and manufacturing units around Bengaluru. Various trade unions that had earlier called for a joint protest on April 20 also took part in the protests that broke out two days earlier. The city of Bengaluru came to a virtual halt.
The thousands of garment units in the city were shut down, and the state government has imposed Sec. 144, prohibiting gathering of 5 or more people, all over the city. Nevertheless, faced with this massive and uncontrollable protest, on 19 April the Union Labour Minister announced the withdrawal of the hated notification.
What were the workers angry about?
The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) represents the hard-earned savings of the workers. Workers enrolled under this scheme put aside 12% of their meagre income every month, which is then matched by the employers. The point is that the employees can withdraw against this saving when they need a larger sum of money – either when they retire or lose a job, or when they face medical or other emergencies or have major expenses due to marriages, children’s education, and so on. Most of the Indian working class leads a hand-to-mouth existence, which leaves them nothing to fall back on when they face such needs. The PF is one of the only sources of funds they can rely on; the alternative is to take loans from private moneylenders and fall into a vicious cycle of indebtedness.
When the garment workers, most of whom are young women in their 20s, learnt that they would not be able to take out their PF money before the age of 58, their fury knew no bounds. In the conditions in the garment industry, most of the workers do not work more than 5 years in one unit. This is both because of the deliberate policy of the management (as they become eligible for gratuity after 5 years), and because the conditions of work are so horrendous that most of the workers, especially the young women, cannot bear the conditions for a longer term. They are forced to move to another factory, or else they quit altogether. In fact, poor health and diseases arising from the conditions of work in this industry (including TB and other respiratory diseases, anaemia, unbearable back and knee pain, etc) ensure that few workers can look forward to working until the so-called “retirement” age. For these workers now to be told that they have to wait until they “retire” at the age of 58 to get what is rightfully theirs was totally unacceptable.
Although in theory, a worker’s PF account can be moved from one workplace to another, the storm of protest shows the workers’ complete distrust of the capitalists and the state, coming out of their life experience. As every worker knows, it is extremely difficult to get one’s rightful dues from the capitalists and state. This is even more so when a worker is no longer employed in a unit and has to try and get hold of his or her PF many years or decades later. The protesting workers did not “misunderstand” the government’s “good” intentions, as some officials are saying. On the contrary, they understood very well that this was just one more means for the state to hang on to their earnings while leaving them unable to meet their financial obligations and at the mercy of moneylenders.
The anti-worker stance of the Modi government
The notification that the workers have risen up against is only one part of several anti-worker amendments to the Employees’ Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 brought in by the Modi government. Taken together, these amendments will bring more savings of the working class under the control of the state. These funds, which even before this government came to power amounted to 6.32 lakh crore rupees, will be at the disposal of the state and the private fund managers that it employs. The state is looting from the poorest of the poor to benefit itself and the big capitalists to whom it gives huge handouts.
The amendments to the EPF Act are in turn only part of a much wider set of anti-worker changes being ushered in in the name of “ease of doing business” for the Indian and foreign capitalists. The government has for instance given a complete licence to bypass existing measures that benefit and protect workers for all start-ups and for units employing less than 50 workers.
Many more other such “labour reforms” are in the offing, with the government being egged on to move even faster by the big monopoly capitalists.
Garment industry: an example of the effects of globalization on workers
The readymade garment industry is the largest foreign exchange earner in India, amounting to 16% of the total export earnings. It began in India around 1975, but took off in a major way with the liberalization and globalization of the Indian economy in the 1990s. Major Western clothing chains shifted production to countries like China and India primarily because of lower labour costs. In India, the shift from mainly male workers to an increasing proportion of lower-paid women in the garment workforce has been one of the major ways in which the capitalists have been able to keep labour costs down.
Garment workers are set impossible targets each day, of about 120-150 pieces, which is estimated to be 3-4 times what is humanly possible. This is so that they work at a frantic pace all the time, often forgoing meal breaks and even going to the toilet in order not to lose time. Even then, they are constantly falling behind targets, which gives the management a ready-made excuse to penalize or fire them.
In their constant drive to increase their profits, the big multinational clothing chains have in recent years shifted some of their production to newer countries where they can produce even more cheaply, such as Bangaldesh, Vietnam and Kampuchea. The increased competition has made Indian garment unit owners impose even more exploitative conditions on their workers.
Bangalore is the third largest centre of the garment industry in India, and as such attracts workers not just from the city and its rural hinterland, but from across many parts of India. The household economies of these workers cannot survive on just the monthly income that they make. For anything but the most routine expenses, including their own marriages in many cases, they have to rely on their PF. The government claims that by introducing the notification about not withdrawing the full PF until age 58, it was only looking after the long-term security of the workers. This is just nonsense. Of course, all workers want security in their old age, including pension and other benefits. But when they have no security even in the short term, how many can afford to not dip into their savings while thinking of the long term?
It is therefore no surprise that the garment workers of Bengaluru were the ones to erupt in anger against the EPF notification issued by the government. But the conditions which gave rise to their protest are not any different in so many other sectors of the working class all over the country. The mass protests of April 18-19 are only a forewarning of the kind of resentment and fury that is building up in the working class on account of their constantly stepped-up exploitation, and which will explode even more in the coming days.