Export firms are veritable deathtraps, say two retrenched workers
KHAIRUNISA Namdar Turki and Geeta Patil, production workers with the Tandon group of companies at the Santacruz Electronics Export Promotion Zone (SEEPZ) in Bombay, participated in a strike at the company. Soon after, they claim, they were "persuaded" to go on leave and barred from entering the company's premises. In early July, they filed a case at the labour court, seeking reinstatement with full back wages. In support of their demand, they gave details of the appalling working conditions.
Turki and Patil are among the numerous SEEPZ workers, 90 per cent of whom are women and in the age group of 18 to 25, for whom little has changed in the past 12 years. This, even after leading research institutions have unveiled discriminatory and exploitative labour conditions in the zone. The first study was conducted in 1984 by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and the second, in 1994, by Chanda Korgaonkar, backed by the Indian National Trade Union Congress and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and taken up in the legislative assembly. Are the prestigious export promotion zones (EPZs) really a solution to the socioeconomic problems?
Claims Korgaonkar: "Labour laws are being flouted in SEEPZ, especially in the electronics sector." Even minimum wages are not being paid. In 1993, the Tandon group, the largest computer parts exporter from India employing a third of the workers, paid a basic salary of not more than Rs 575 against the prescribed wage of Rs 600. Total wages, inclusive of allowances and production incentives, have been around half the levels prevailing in the domestic tariff areas. In 1993, workers in, say NELCO, drew Rs 2,500 per month against an average of Rs 950 within the zone.
Korgaonkar's study is based on interviews with 175 workers. It found that even after two years, workers continued to be temporary, girls who get married and pregnant are discouraged from continuing, and that employees are made to work overtime compulsorily far in excess of permissible limits. Turki's salary slip for November 1992 shows 256 overtime hours for the month against the legally permitted 75 hours for three months. Other payslips show overtime ranging from 132 to 144 hours. Says Turki: "I have not had a single day off in the two years I worked there." As a result, chronic ailments and fatigue are common. Dr R.N. Sharma, head, TISS' Unit for Urban Studies, who spearheaded the 1984 study, terms this "a de-skilling experience". Like a machine, the best is wrung out of the workers, especially young girls, for as they long as they can give, after which they are discarded. Appointment norms are arbitrary. Though all workers are contracted labour, for a period of five months in 1991, most workers with the Tandon group got payslips with no mention of the company or the contractor. Workers claim that though most of them came through direct references, their payslips often show a labour contractor's name, which, they allege, change from time to time. If this is true, the SEEPZ companies are attempting to bypass the employment laws of the land by terming full-time workers as temporary contract labour, which is not eligible for any benefits other than a flat stipend.
Turki says she responded to a newspaper advertisement and was interviewed by the company's personnel department, but her slip carries the name of a contractor, who she claims is an employee of the Tandon group. Says Korgaonkar: "The contract labour clause helps the companies to use the girls as cheap labour with no strings attached." In reply to Turki's official letter that she be reinstated, the company said the question did not arise as she had never been its employee to begin with.
Protesting is extremely hazardous. Dissidents, the girls aver, are immediately sacked. SEEPZ is a utility zone and workers are legally prohibited from striking work. Says Korgaonkar: "Most workers in the electronics zone are too young and timid to organise themselves into a union." Also, they cannot risk losing a job. For instance, they allege, when the workers struck work in 1994, about 150 of them were never taken back despite assurances to the contrary.
Says Sharma: "The place is a veritable prison." Girls claim that they aren't allowed to even relieve themselves anytime during the day, except for the half-hour allowed for lunch and a 15-minute tea break. But they are given a lift to and from a place close to their homes, when the first shift starts at 6 am and the second ends, at 10 pm. Says Korgaonkar: "The prominent employers officially encourage unions but often pit the workers against each other." If 1,500 striking girls were bailed out from prison in 1994, it was because export orders leave no scope for missed deadlines. As exporters agree, one slip in delivery schedules can cost the company a painstakingly-developed global buyer.
RESEARCHERS argue that the companies get special subsidies and support from the Government, but under the pretext of providing employment, they are exploiting labour. Korgaonkar estimates that a company within the zone can get away with only 40 per cent of the investment its counterpart outside must make. SEEPZ companies, for instance, pay a rent of Re 1 per sq ft against Rs 40 outside.
Counters M.L. Tandon, chairman, Tan-don group: "We are designed for success," implying that wages can be paid only to the extent that the factory's produce is internationally competitive on price, quality and delivery schedules. Adds B.V. Shah, chief executive, finance: "We are providing employment of the nature that our business demands." Most workers today, he claims, take home Rs 1,800-2,000 a month, including overtime. Almost 85 per cent of the girls earn overtime because, says Shah, it pays up to three times the regular wage.
Says Tandon: "The electronics market is one where prices are forever falling and quality always improving." In such a competitive environment, a company has to cope with price, volume and quality or be wiped out. It has to survive on wafer-thin margins and yet invest in research and development. He claims that in the post-liberalisation period, the benefits of operating in an EPZ have been wiped out.
Tandon argues that even though fluctuating export orders make a permanent workforce an unviable proposition, the group does try to give benefits. For instance, workers get 10 days of casual leave and 18 days of paid leave a year, besides a Sunday off, a recreation room, a doctor and a yoga instructor. The group also claims to have gone out of its way to avoid retrenchment. In one company, 1,200 workers were kept idle for two years, and in another, 500 workers are being used against a real need for 50. Working conditions, the company counters, are far better than in China, where workers can be sent off without any notice.
Despite Tandon's claim that his workers bear no grudges and prefer to talk to the company instead of routing their demands through unions, workers counter that their grievances are genuine and should be redressed. Rues Turki: "Would girls like me agitate without a salary for two years if all these benefits were ours?"
The situation at SEEPZ is believed to be the tip of the iceberg, and it's time the government took another look at labour problems. Korgaonkar's study had suggested the establishment of a tripartite committee consisting of the Government, industry and labour representation to sort out matters. In the coming months, workers hope, when Turki and Patil's case comes up for hearing, it may finally force a decision.