They continue to toil under trying conditions
Monday 8 March 1999 , TOI
By Priyanka Kakodkar
MUMBAI: It is difficult to imagine Chandrakanta
Asadane working with her hands. Her fingers are
gnarled, their joints swollen and stiff. Yet she
hardly pauses while carefully folding a mountain
of paper pamphlets. She can't afford to slack;
she has just three days to fold a thousand. If
they make the grade, she will earn Rs 4.
Chandrakanta works from her home in the Ganesh
Nagar slum in Bhandup, folding pamphlets for
pharmaceutical companies. They will find their
way into packets of tablets and tubes which cost
many times her wage.
``If we make three folds, we get Rs 4. Those who
make two folds get Rs 2 for a thousand
pamphlets,'' says Chandrakanta, who took up the
job two years ago to supplement her son's
earning as a rickshaw driver. A persistently
aching back, watery eyes and worn fingers are
the legacy of her profession.
In their shanty in Dharavi, Mehrunissa and her
three daughters knot colourful skeins to fashion
the edges of `dupattas'. Crouched over the
fabrics all day, they manage to complete around
15 by evening. Each intricate piece of handiwork
will fetch them Rs 2.
Nearly a century after needle-workers in New
York led a massive demonstration demanding
better work conditions and equal franchise,
workers like Chandrakanta and Mehrunissa
continue to toil in almost mediaeval conditions.
The anniversary of the New York demonstration of
March 8, 1908, which falls on Monday, is
celebrated globally as International Women's
Day.
How are working women in the city faring on the
91st anniversary of that momentous event? Job
opportunities for women have definitely shot up.
In Mumbai, the work participation rate for women
rose from 18.2 per cent in 1987-88 to 22.1 per
cent in 1993-94, national sample survey data
shows.
However, the majority of the work force --both
men and women --are employed in the rapidly
swelling unorganised sector. This sector is
characterised by uncertain wages and job
insecurity. With virtually no legal protection
or unionisation, workers in this sector are
vulnerable to exploitation.
In Mumbai, the unorganised sector employed
around 85 per cent of the city's working women
in 1993.
Pushpa Raote, a garment factory worker in
Bhandup, is another typical example of this
sector. Paid on the basis of each piece she
stitches, she manages to make Rs 70 at the end
of a 12-hour day. She gets one Sunday off in the
month. ``You never know when the `seth' will
kick you out,'' says the 35-year-old widow with
three school-going children. Maternity benefits
or accident compensation are unheard of.
Although the organised sector started shrinking
with the stagnation of the manufacturing
industry in the late 1970s, the structural
adjustment programme (SAP) unleashed by the New
Economic Policy exacerbated the trend,
researchers say.
As the SAP unfolded, industries cut regular
employees in favour of contract and casual
workers. In order to reduce product prices to
improve global competitiveness, companies shut
down divisions and started sub-contracting work
to casual workers, Lakshmi Lingam from the Tata
Institute of Social Sciences points out.
The reforms also led to spiralling inflation as
the lowering of trade barriers affected domestic
prices. Trapped in the vortex of growing
retrenchment, shrinking household incomes and
skyrocketing food prices, more and more women
were forced to enter the labour market at a poor
bargaining position, says Madhura Swaminathan
from the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development
Research.
Devamma Kole was forced to start work as a
domestic servant a year ago when her husband's
company declared a lock-out. He used to make
around Rs 3,000 a month as a machine operator at
GKW. ``I wash vessels in three households for Rs
150 a month. It's the going rate in this area,''
says Devamma, whose husband now works as a
labourer on construction sites. The SAP's
deregulation of the labour market has also
worsened conditions for workers, activists say.
Even within the informal sector, women tend to
be found in the more exploitative jobs:
home-based workers or those employed in
shrimp-sorting or garment factories are mainly
women. ``Since their jobs are insecure, women in
the unorganised sector are more vulnerable to
sexual exploitation,'' says Marium Dhawle of the
All-India Democratic Women's Association.
The link between the economic reforms and the
push towards the informal sector is illustrated
by data from the national sample survey. The
proportion of casual labourers in the country's
female work force rose from 41 per cent in
1990-91 when the reforms were introduced to 45.3
per cent in 1993-94. The proportion of regular
salaried workers fell from 4.5 per cent to 3.4
per cent during the same period.
Economist Sudha Deshpande, however, disagrees
with the view that liberalisation has worsened
conditions for workers. ``The picture of a
distress sale of female labour is exaggerated,''
she feels, pointing out that job opportunities
for unskilled labour have increased.
She also stresses that wages of casual workers
have risen at a much higher rate than those or
regular workers since the reforms. Those of
casual women workers have risen more than men,
she adds. ``In this scenario, the shift towards
the unorganised sector is not a sign of economic
distress,'' she says.
Globally, however, women workers in India
continue to cut a sorry picture. India was rated
an abysmal 86th out of 94 countries in the index
measuring women's economic and political
participation in the UNDP's Human Development
Report for 1997. Other third world countries
like Bangladesh got a much higher rating.
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