INDIA-LABOUR: Women Labour for Less Under Free Market

By Neena Bhandari Reprint | | Print |

Neena Bhandari

NEW DELHI, Oct 4 1997 (IPS) - It is women workers who have been hardest hit by the opening of the Indian economy and the restructuring in industry to make it more competitive.

Only 11 percent of women workers have permanent jobs with written contracts and are getting all the benefits and wages above the minimum wage standard. The majority, 96 percent, are at the lower unprotected end of the employment pyramid.

Since the introduction of market economic policies in the ’90s, a large number of women workers have lost their jobs and many others are being reduced to casual workers deprived of minimum wages and benefits.

“The status of women’s employment has moved towards being irregular and casual and the few, who had some measure of protection, are now facing the threat of losing their jobs,” says Nandita Shah, a researcher who with four others undertook a three-year study on the effects of the new economic policy on working women and organisational strategies in the country.

These findings were presented at a seminar last week on ‘Policies and Strategies for Working Women in the context of Industrial Restructuring’ organised by the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague (The Netherlands) and the Front for Rapid Economic Advancement, India.

The study was based on 610 interviews of women workers in five industries — electronics in Delhi and pharmaceuticals, plastics, soaps and detergents and diamond processing and jewellery in Mumbai (previously Bombay). Among the 610 workers, 91 workers from the electronics, pharmaceuticals, soaps and cosmetic industry have recently lost their jobs. Another 200 trade unionists, employers, male workers were also interviewed.

On the basis of the 1981 census it has been estimated that employment security provisions do not cover more than 12 percent of workers. The situation for women workers is much worse since only 6 percent of women workers are in the organised sector, the rest in the unorganised sector.

All industries showed an increasing preference for contract labour suggesting a workforce that is sporadic and fluctuating and not doing regular work. In the diamond processing industry, the second largest foreign exchange earner, workers get high wages due to a piece rate system but there are no benefits.

Among new entrants there were a large number of single women – – unmarried, divorced and widowed, whose terms and conditions of employment were that of a casual, unprotected, insecure workforce, getting very low wages.

According to Sujata Gothoskar, a researcher, the worst affected industry is that of plastics in Mumbai. In the plastics industry, like toys, beauty accessories, tooth brushes and switches, particularly in the recycling units, work is given out to home-based workers for finishing and assembling.

It is the tiny units and individual traders who cater to the lower income domestic market that depend heavily on home- working. Many of these units have been threatened by delicensing and some have been wiped out. These units had a large number of women working as home-based workers and today their livelihoods, which were anyway very precarious, are being lost.

Similarly in the electronic industry, the emphasis on quality control and the fact that electronic components are still imported and expensive makes home-based work an unviable option for manufacturers at the moment.

A study carried out in developed countries like Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the United States concluded that “from the 1970s women have emerged as very desirable employees … because their relationship to the labour market has traditionally displayed the characteristics of flexibility so much wanted in the current conjuncture”.

Thus home-based workers remain isolated and greatly exploited with very few opportunities for organising. The recently passed Home-workers Convention is a major victory in gaining recognition of this type of work, but now the task is to ensure implementation of this legislation.

After opening up of India, many industries began moving out of Mumbai where land has always been a problem. The pharmaceuticals began relocating from Mumbai. Several women were retrenched or given a golden handshake under the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS). These women were largely in their 40s at mid-career where finding a new job was doubly difficult.

“Today, they are nowhere, have no savings and with loss of jobs are undergoing deep depression. Some even confessed to having contemplated suicide,” says Nandita Gandhi, a researcher.

The study shows that with casualisation of labour, a large number of households have gone in for health impairing cuts in food consumption as well as buying cheaper food in bulk and processing at home, which has increased the labour time women spend on household work. Cuts in leisure, eating out, travel all have implications for working women’s lives in leading to further restrictions on their mobility and socialising as well as for organising.

There has been a progressive deterioration in the public health services, despite the fact that for the large population of the poor this is a major service provider. The increase in the cost of medicine, inevitable dependence on the unregulated private medicine systems has resulted in health being the second major reason for household indebtedness amongst the poor.

In response to economic pressures more household members are forced to work. This has accentuated the pressures on households to remove children from school.

“Research is not tangible. The Ninth Plan doesn’t address the issue of low income of working people, cut in subsidies on education, health and PDS (public distribution system), closure of sick units. We have to ensure that policy for women has to be fed in the Ninth plan,” urged Amrita Chhachhi, lecturer at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague.

The study suggests that given the increasing entry of transnational firms as well as export orientation of domestic industries, there has to be some mechanism by which the workers can ensure that the government is forced to keep a commitment to International Labour Organisation (ILO) and other international conventions which ensure the rights of working people.

As many as 70 percent of the women work in units where there are no unions. Pharmaceuticals and electronics are an exception to this rule.

While urging that women workers must organise themselves, Dr Gita Sen of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, said, “the Third Revolution coupled with breakthroughs in bio- technologies and changes in global trade is having a tremendous impact on production process and movement of labour and capital. This has led to triple threat of casualisation of labour, occupational segregation and privatisation of their reproductive process for the women.”

Trade unionists and social activists must mobilise and organise workers in the informal sectors such as construction, and home-based industry and the urban and rural women around civic issues such as credit, housing, health care and PDS, suggests the study.

Globalisation has brought the industry under severe pressure. Specific policies have to be formulated to support the women workers to ensure sustainable livelihoods and well being in the era of liberalisation.