A Report on Condition of Workers in Asansol

Sudipta Paul

Source: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2006-April/007264.html


The wheel of industrialization of West Bengal is running very fast with frequent closure of many industries. It does not allow any resistance through out the path of industrialization. The movement against the closure of industries, the scarcity of land, militant movement of the land losers, demand of job of land losers, demand of minimum wages and other facilities etc - whatever happens it is running smoothly at any cost. It's true that with industrialization a number of people will get jobs. One new industrialist of Asansol, Paban Ghugutia said in an interview with a correspondent of "Ananda Bazar Patrika": "Suppose an industry is built up. Unemployed youths will get the jobs. They will earn money. Economic status of the workers will be changed. They will go to market to buy the necessary commodities. Then there will be some sort of economic transactions. So with increase of industry, the life of human beings will also develop." In the course of the economic development, a number of new industrial estates are developing in last fifteen to sixteen years in Asansol area. Mangalpur and Kannyapur are two of them in the Asansol Subdivision. There is also a plan to develop industrial estates adjacent to 55 KM area of G. T. Road from Durgapur to Barakar. Let's see how much industrialization has taken place and how much employment has been generated at the two industrial estates in the field of closed industrial areas of Asansol.

Before 80's, renowned Hindusthan Pilkinton Glass Factory was closed. After that Bengal Paper Mill was closed. From 90's the closing of the industries took an acceleration and within last fifteen years a number of industries have been closed very rapidly.
We give a list of closed industries with manpower.

Hindusthan Pilkinton Glass factory -1600
Bengal Paper Mill -1500
Bharat Aluminium Co. Ltd. -3000
Burn & Co. 1&2 -1400
Cycle Corporation -3000
Indian Iron and Steel Company (Kulty)-3000

Nearly 15000 workers have lost job due to closure of industry. This is only reported and available data of closed industry. There are a number of unreported and unregistered industries which have been closed. The residential area of those industries is becoming abandoned almost. Most of the workers left their companies' quarters to their homeland or went to other places like Kolkata and also Asansol proper in search of their lively hood. A vast area of Kulty Works of IISCO has become a ghost area. The fifth largest Golf Ground of Kulty is remaining in unused condition. However, within the short distance of 250-300 meters a new township is developing surrounding Kulty College which was mostly a forest area. The residential area of the workers of the glass factory is in the same condition. The officers quarters became abundant. But the families of the workers, who have no other alternative are remaining in the damaged quarters of the company. Near about 200 families are spending their life in a very miserable condition. Most of the next generation of glass factory workers are day labours or unemployed. Third generation of these families are mostly illiterate due to poverty. One jute mill owner bought the 150 bigha of land of glass factory including the area of quarters at a paltry sum of 4.05 crores. He wants to evict the workers families. But the people unitedly made resistance against the displacement without the banner of any political party one and half years back. This glass factory colony is also a subsidence prone area due to the unscientific coal mining according to the official record of coal company.

Next we take a look at the development of new industries in place of huge number of closed industry. One new characteristic is to form a cluster with a group of different industries within the same place. Mangalpur and Kannyapur industrial estates are two such clusters of industries. Total area of these two estates is approximately 300 acres. Now the question is from where land is made available for these types of cluster of industries which form an industrial estate?


Asansol town has been developed in a very unplanned way with coal industry, railways, and other industries. For planned development and in the name of industrialization, West Bengal Government accrued land according to the Land Accusation Act 1884 from landowners. Most of the lands were one crop agriculture land. Compensation has been paid in terms of land ceiling rate. Land less people were the 'bargadars' who cultivated land by taking lease from landowners. A number of people were agricultural labour. The bargadars and agricultural labours did not get any compensation due to the acqisition of land. These people were assured of job in the future industry. In this land, housing board made residential area and remaining area was handed over to the ADDA in 1981. Creating infrastructures like water, electricity, road for industry, ADDA leased out land to the owners of industries with a contract of 60 years. Adjacent Kannyapur industrialestatetownship is developing gradually.

Most of the new industries are small and medium. One completely new type of industry is Sponge Iron. Within the last 8-9 years, the demand of steel is increasing in national and international market. But the supply of scrap has been decreased gradually. So the demand of sponge iron as a raw material of steel industry has increased. Not only sponge iron, we see that in place of integrated steel and cement plants there are small separate modules of plant for production of the material of different stages. These small modules are called mini plants. In a number of cases the separate modules of steel industry are established by one single owner. Except steel there are a number of food industries like biscuit, flour mills etc. There also some other industries like aluminum, plastic, repairing job etc. At adjacent subdivision, Durgapur, there are a number of sponge iron industries and rolling mills. The main reason to develop iron and cement industry in this region is the availability of one of the main raw materials - coal and slag for cement from IISCO. We mentioned in the first posting that there exists a circle of "illegal" coal mines (which is not run by Government body and license holders) . Most of the coal supplied to mini steel industries are from these illegal mines and from the illegal theft of coal from ECL of Coal India. Slag is a waste material of steel industry, IISCO. Total number of new industries is 19 and 11 at Mangalpur and Kannyapur respectively. Within these 7 are sponge iron, 2 rolling mill, 7 cement companies and 9 food industries and one Jute industry.

Who are the workers of these new industries?

The Chief minister of West Bengal is very much egger to claim that he is the driver of the huge industrialization. This will create lots of jobs for the people of west Bengal. But I want to highlight the problems of the claim of huge industrialization. Does this type of industrialization really make any remarkable changes in employment?

There are lots of confusion about the exact figure of the labour force of the new industrial estates. Roughly 5000 employment has been created at new industrial estates. Within the 5000 new employments, 3000 are in jute industry of Mangalpur. From our survey we see that nearly 50 % workers of new industries are from outside states and other districts of West Bengal. In steel industry nearly 60%, in food 99% and in cement and other nearly 30-40 % workers are from outside of Asansol.

In the language of the local workers of new industry

"Why do the owners prefer to recruit local people. There is a possibility to make disturbance by making demand for better wage and facilities. They will do the unionism. The owners do not prefer it."

"Is it possible to do the jobs of iron company. Who will agree to consume the huge dust inside the shop. In the rolling mills workers are bound to do the job in high temperature. Heat, dust, - all come from company. So they need new workers".

We see that some of the local and outside workers work under the company directly. A section of workers are contract labour. Migrant workers are mostly contractor's workers. They reside in the quarters of the respective company within the campus of the company. The surrounded campus has security at every possible entrance. All sorts of entry and exits are monitored by the security. In the next section we see that invariably no contractor wants to pay salary in time. So there are one sorts of bindings to stay at the company. Otherwise you return without money.

There is a new feature like the recruitment procedure of private initiatives of coal that local people has been recruited through the local political power. They are also compelled to be a member of the respective union affiliated to the respective political power. Only for one case there is a union of TMC. And for the rest 29 cases they are under the grip of CITU. Interestingly there is no unit wise Tread Union of the particular unit. Basically political power, mostly CPI(M), controls the activity of the workers inside the factory and outside the factory. Apparently there is an organized effort to control the apparently unorganized labour force or informal ways of survival. In the language of the workers-

"They (CPI(M)) have started the new factory. So the CITU union does not want to make much pressure to meet the demand of the workers."

"If anybody join other union except the union of CPI(M) then it faces complete resistance by police. Also the CITU does not do anything."
"There is the 'raj' of CPI(M). So they control all union activities."

Status of the workers in the documents of the Government:

There are lots of confusion about the actual figure of the workers. At the time of factory registration according to the factories Act, 1948 it is necessary to declare at the office of Directorate of factories the maximum number of workers, including contractor labours, likely to be employed in the factory on any day during the next 12 months. They must give further declaration of the updated manpower of every year. After that all workers should be registered for the Employees State Insurance Scheme at ESI corporation office. According to that scheme, every registered worker gets the benefit of ESI scheme. One major benefit is the 50 % payment for the sick leave and compensation for disablement due to accident in the factory. We have collected the data of the manpower from both office. Here we see that there is a gap between the number of workers from Directorate of Factories office and ESI. The number of ESI card holders is less than the total workers of the factory for most of the cases. For 10 cases none of the declared workers have been registered in the ESI scheme. Even we found more workers than government documents at the time of survey and \conversations with the workers. We also found that there are contractor's labours for most of the company. But contractor's labours have no registration in the company. "Only the contractor have notes about the workers." Even they do not make any payment document for the contract labour. Here we like to mention that there are only two inspectors to inspect the registered factories and also unauthorized running factories. Grossly, the Factories Act, 1948, the Payment of Wages Act, Maternity Act are under the purview of Directorate of Factories. Payment of Wages Act regulates the payment of wages to certain classes of persons employed in any factory or in industrial or other establishments. The Act envisages maintenance of register of wages, displaying notice and data of payment, timely payment of wages at the end of the wage period and prevention of illegal and unauthorized deduction of wages etc. So it is preferable to the management to declare less number of workers than actual.

Wages

It is necessary to mention actual payment to every individual worker for last one year at the time of submission of the contribution of the workers and also owners for ESI scheme. From there we got the wage range of each factory. There are gross violations of minimum wages. There are no minimum wage for sponge iron, cement etc. For sponge iron minimum wage inspector of labour commissioner's office compare the wage of worker with the declared wage of Iron Foundry. Here we mention the minimum and maximum gap of wages per month between declared minimum wages for 2005 and actual wages for some industry. Generally the actual wages are less than the declared minimum wages by the West Bengal government.

Steel industry - Rs. 117 to 1027
Flour mill - Rs. 1211 to 1656
Bakery - Rs. 525 to 1513


We came to know from the Deputy Labour Commissioner's office that in most of the cases, owners and the union make a understanding with the workers for low wages in the name of present crisis of industry and market. But workers are compelled to agree to work at any wage in the age of huge unemployment.

Most of the workers are under the condition no work and no pay. Here we also see the same characteristic of the private initiative of coal. For giving job opportunities to the maximum number of persons, one group of workers do the job for the 15 days of a month and other group of workers do the job for another 15 days. Some of the contractors make this type of arrangement taking consent of both workers and factory owners. Here we cannot make any simple straight line between workers and contractors or workers and factory owners. Let's listen the story of the cooperation between workers, contractors and factory owners in the form of oral history.

A worker of a mini cement factory:

"I am doing work for 10 years in this factory from the very beginning. In 1996 I got the job. We twelve had started work. Six are at the one side of the rolling machine and rest are at the other side. There are three women. We were recruited directly under the company. But there are 15 to 20 contractors workers. Number of contractors workers are varying seasonally. At the lean period (from July to January) we have made adjustment by sitting with the owners and contractors and have settled job rotationally because all get the opportunity to do the job. We always cooperate with the owner. The CITU union of CPI(M) has made several calls to join with them. I went to the office of CITU and said that when we will fail to settle our demand by discussion then you come. Otherwise there is no requirement of you. If you agree then we will join CITU in the above terms. We do not allow any unionism in every small event with your flag (jhanda). But owner said he would close the factory because of market crisis. There are many new cement companies. So he cannot compete. We need to make some compromise for our own existence."

There is also dissatisfaction, anger against contractors and owners. But in the era of huge number of unused labour they do not have the courage (better to say they are compelled not) to make any voice against exploitation in the name of industrialization.

Now we listen the story of one roaming contractor's worker of the Rolling Mill.

"I am a resident of Nagra District of Rajasthan. First I worked at Rama Machinary of Maddrass. They have not given regular salary. Than I went to the factory of Sodepur which manufacture span pipe. There I worked for five months. After that contractor did not give any work. Then I went to work at PMT steel of Bombay and Sun steel of Ulubaria. After completion of work under contractors I was ditched by contractors for wages at Raypur. Now I am in the Baba Ispat Company of Mangalpur. After melting of sponge iron at furnace, melted iron is poured into the casting for preparing 60 to 80 ton carton (iron rod). At the cutting edge of the iron I remove carton one by one continuously. This type of work requires massive manual labour. For five hours a day I get Rs. 2100 a month. I have no identity card, no ESI card (for getting facility Employment insurance Scheme) and also no PF. According to my ability, I do the work, then I will earn. But I got better wages at
Sodepur."

Environment of work:

This section can be started with the words of the previous worker of Rajasthan. He said within six month he was an eyewitness of three accidents. One worker injured by melting iron on his leg. He was a local worker. When the medical cost of recovery was increasing upto a certain limit then the owner sacked him from the job without any compensation. The finger of two workers injured at the time of running. Upper portion of finger was cut off. Total number of reported accident at ESI for accident benefit is 143 at the factories of Asansol.

According to the Factory Act, owners are bound to provide the personal safety equipments like helmet, shoes, gloves, mask etc. for protection from accident and pollution. Most of the companies are not keen to give these equipments. According to the workers, proper safety measures have not been followed. For every case we find that safety rules and regulation of Factories act have been violated. Not only the new factories are accident-prone, these new mini plants create pollution inside the factory and outside the factory. The factory environment is full of black dust and fumes. There is no single case of periodical medical check up of the workers of dangerous production process. According to the ESI, number of patients of occupational diseases is increasing.

The outside of the factories are polluted by the extract gases and fumes which are full of the components of sulpher. The cultivated lands become non-fertile due to the accumulation of black dust on the surface. Villagers have shown the black paddy with black rice. Water bodies become polluted. Villagers are affected by the pollution.

This is the situation where new industrialization only creates nearly 5000 employments where only reported 15000 workers have lost their jobs due to the closure of main industries. There are also unreported huge number of loss of ways of earning from the ancillary and the urban market, which developed with the big industries. Not only is it comparable in quantity but also in quality of the status of workers. The new industrial policy of West Bengal government gives some facility to the industrialist for investment like state capital investment subsidy, interest subsidy, waiver of electricity duty, remission of stamp duty etc. Parallely the new or modified labour laws are going to be passed by which the existing pro workers' restrictions have to be removed to facilitate the investment. Also we see that the threat of huge unused labour prepare the ground for change in labour law with 12 working hours and no restriction of retrenchment. But the workers are not ready to participate in the market with very low wages. Also there is no guaranty of job. From the interview with the workers we got the impression that owners of the new industries are used to retrench any worker at any time as they wish. Till today no organised resistance has built up against such exploitation. So the new employment at Mangalpur and Kannyapur industrial estates are not qualitatively comparable with the employment at integrated plants. There is a good example within the Asansol subdivision that average per day earning of the workers of the big integrated plants of privately run Damodar cement is more than 400. In contrast the average per day earnings of the workers of new industries is less than Rs. 80.

The loss of agricultural land or the loss due to industrial pollution has not been addressed here. If the loss of man-days can be calculated for the above loss then we will come nearer to the picture of actual development due to industrialization.