SOIL Report 2008 - ACCESS Development Services

Chapter IIPoormigrantlabouroften sufferfrom longerworkinghours, poorliving andworkingconditions,low anddelayedpaymentandsometimesnonpaymentof wages,socialisolation,poor accessto basicamenities,lack ofsocialsecuritymeasuresand the like.In recenttimesmigrantworkershave startedfacinganotherform ofthreatto theirlivelihoods– expulsionand eviction– by the‘sons of thesoil’ at theirdestinations.There is a large gap between the insights from macro data and those from field studies. It has howeverbeen seen that there are varied economic and social impacts on migrant labourers and their families.Poor migrant labour often suffer from longer working hours, poor living and working conditions,low and delayed payment and sometimes non-payment of wages, social isolation, poor access to basicamenities, lack of social security measures and the like. They have very little bargaining power too. Mostmigrant labourers are employed in the unorganised sector where the lack of regulation compounds theirvulnerability. While there are some important labour legislations meant to protect workers in general,and unorganised workers including migrant workers in particular, implementation on the ground hasbeen limited.A new development observed in recent times is that apart from various forms of economic, physicaland sexual exploitation, migrant workers have started facing another form of threat to their livelihoods– expulsion and eviction – by the ‘sons of the soil’ at their destinations. This is mostly a politicallymotivated move which ignites emotive issues. (See Box 2.4).Box 2.4: Migration – For Better or Worse?A study conducted on the status of migrant workers in the Punjab by the Centre for Educationand Communication (CEC) pointed out gross violations of the Child Labour (Prohibition& Regulation Act 1986), the Minimum Wages Act (1948), the Contract Labour Act (1970), theInter State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979 and the Equal Remuneration Act (1976). The violationof these laws was found to be most rampant in the case of brick kilns. Different kinds ofharassment were meted out to migrant workers by the police, postal department, owners of theestablishments, owners of workers’ dwellings, shopkeepers, labour contractors and the railwaypolice during their journey. Migrant labour is recruited from various parts of a particular statethrough contractors or agents for work outside that state in large construction and other projects.This system lends itself to abuses – working hours are not fixed and workers have to workunder extremely harsh conditions.Fifty-six Biharis were murdered in Assam in November 2003, over a week of sustained ethnicviolence. In the face of intense competition for the semi-skilled D category of jobs (requiring aminimum of Eighth standard education) in the Indian Railways (the single largest employer inthe world), targeted bloodshed was the answer. A mere 2,750 vacancies in Assam had attracted20,000 prospective applicants from Bihar. This prompted the local ULFA (United LiberationFront of Assam) to call for protection of employment opportunities for the sons-of-the-soil, along-standing ideology of Bal Thackeray’s Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. In the days of violence, 11wage labourers were also brutally murdered because they hailed from Bihar. But what is the rootof a force so vicious and desperate that it instigates mass murder on ethnic lines?Again recently in 2008, Raj Thackeray, nephew of Bal Thackeray, engineered an anti-NorthIndian movement in Mumbai, Maharashtra to establish his new political outfit, MaharashtraNavnirman Sena.Source: http://www.labourfile.org/cec1/cec and Narayan, Swati ‘ Unemployment and Migration’ www.indiatogether.org,March 200450In a vast country like India where millions are migrating internally there is no effective policy to addressthe issues relating to livelihoods and quality of life of migrant workers. However, government employmentschemes under different rural and urban development programmes have been able to somewhat reducedistress migration in dry and rain-fed regions. 13 Similarly, the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS) ofMaharashtra has also contributed to the reduction of distress migration. 14 It is believed that SHG based13PRAXIS (Institute for Participatory Practices) (2002). MP Participatory Poverty Assessment. Report prepared for ADB.14Narayan,Swati (2004, Unemployment and Migration, www.indiatogether.org, March , visited on June 14, 200850