The labour-intensive tea industry is notorious for low wages
and exploitation. Workers get 233 rupees, nearly $3.50 per day which starts
from 8am and carries on until dark.
“This is half of what a daily wage labourer in Kerala gets.
Women workers live in sub-human conditions, stay in one-bed huts without
toilets and other basic amenities,” explained Lissie Sunny who helped form the Unity
of Women, popularly known as Pompilai Orumai (PO) “The unions have been
cheating workers for generations. They have a mutual tie-up with the tea
company managements. The leaders lead a flamboyant life; get free company
houses to live in. Their children get good education and jobs thanks to the
plantation owners.”
The women workers accuse the male trade union leaders of
ignoring the rights and benefits of women workers while ensuring good positions
and financial benefits for their relatives and dependants. Meenu Ammal, an
illiterate worker, said that a trade union mafia controls tea plantations and
takes huge amounts of money from owners in the guise of labourers’ welfare.
6,000 women labourers have held protests as they said they
had been exploited for years and are now ready for their rights. The male
labour union leaders are now put on notice that the history of male-dominated
national trade union politics excluding women was about to change. Weeks of
protests at the Kanan Devan Hills Plantations, controlled by the Indian
multinational Tata, which had clamped down on not only the growing unrest due
to exploitation of women workers for years but also the gender-based
discrimination in the tea sector. The Munnar mobilisation is now known as the
‘Jasmine Revolution’.
Dr. Sreelekha Nair, an independent researcher in women’s
studies in Thiruvananthapuram, said the tea workers’ strike is a landmark
struggle that needs to be recognised for its gender aspect.
K. Sahadevan, a well-known national human rights activist
from Kerala, told IPS that a new trend is forming among women in the country to
come forward for better wages and ensuring other rights of female workers. “There
have been a series of strikes led by females in recent times for women.
Mainstream trade unions were not involved in these. Most of these struggles
were successful following innovative mobilisation strategies and support from
outside the traditional union circles. Women are losing faith in union leaders
sponsored by political parties,” he pointed out.
Dr. Siva Prasad, an expert in labour laws, said the
established unions in the country are led by males who are not bothering about
the women workers either in the organized or unorganized sectors. “The
unorganised labourers are getting low wages and work on deplorable terms and
conditions. The lesson from the strike teaches that a united struggle for
rights would benefit women at large, and female workers could not be easily
bluffed by politically-backed union leaders,” he told IPS.
The World Socialist
Party (India):
257 Baghajatin ‘E’ Block (East), Kolkata – 700086,
Tel: 2425-0208,
E-mail: wspindia@hotmail.com, wsp_india@yahoo.com
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