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print version8 August 2005
The extraordinary brutality unleashed by the Haryana police against the agitating workers of Honda Motor Cycle and Scooter India Ltd. (HMSI) has shocked and revolted the conscience of millions of people who watched it live on television on July 25. The shock was further magnified when the police wantonly repeated the same performance the next day.
Going by the anger and disgust expressed in the SMS messages displayed by several TV channels, even people who have no sympathy for the working class or for trade unionism were appalled at the police’s disgraceful attempt to rationalise the bloody lathi-charge in the afternoon as “retaliation†for an attack on them in the morning. But the two events took place at least five kilometres apart and with a gap of five hours. Going by independent accounts, the first attack was itself provoked by police high-handedness.
The second event was not an excess committed in the heat of the moment, but a cold-blooded attempt to brutalise subdued and bleeding workers. In any case, the police had no business to act in “retaliation†. As various courts have said, the police must not use excessive force, wreak revenge, or chase a retreating crowd. Their duty is to uphold the law. In Haryana, they abjectly and repeatedly failed to do that. They were brazenly partisan towards the HMSI management right since trouble started brewing in that 100 percent Japanese-owned factory in December when a Japanese manager assaulted an Indian worker.
Soon, the workers started unionising. The management ruthlessly victimised them, suspending and dismissing dozens of employees. This was followed in June by an illegal lockout, throwing out over 4,000 employees. Throughout the past seven months, the Haryana administration and police worked hand in glove with the management, and colluded with it to prevent union from being formed. The central issue at HMSI, then, was not so much wages—which aren’t particularly high (only about Rs 4,200 p.m. after deductions)—, but the management’s refusal to tolerate a legitimate trade union, to form which is a fundamental right of workers under the Constitution.
In this, HMSI was not unique. According to an independent survey by the Centre for Education and Communication, more than 90 per cent of the 800-plus large or medium industrial units in the Gurgaon–Manesar–Dharuhera belt do not allow the faintest sign of union activity. The general pattern in this highly prosperous industrial enclave, where more than 100 multinational corporations have invested, is embarrassingly bad: low wages, prevalence of casual labour, hiring of contract labour for regular jobs, arbitrary lockouts, coercive “good-conduct†undertakings, extreme job insecurity, absence of skill-improvement schemes, and authoritarian shopfloor practices. This is a recipe for discontent and unrest.
The Haryana police, and the administration in general, is the primary agency that ensures the perpetuation of this retrograde pattern, whose function is impose despotic “discipline†on workers—in the service of capital. That’s their historic role. But what explains the police’s propensity for anti-labour violence and the extreme viciousness exhibited in the HMSI case?
To simplify a little, this has three sources. First, there is the macho aggressive culture of certain communities in Haryana which are heavily represented in the police. This culture is also displayed in violent forms of casteism (e.g. in the Jhajjar killings of Dalits), reckless driving of Blueline buses, and the network of ruthless khap or clan panchayats which order the murder of the couples who marry against the khap “norm†. The absence of any social reform movement in Haryana ensures that this culture meets with little resistance.
Secondly, Haryana has long had a tradition of unfree or bonded labour which works in extremely oppressive conditions, especially in agriculture. Haryana has among the highest per capita income of all Indian states, but its prosperity is based on the rampant exploitation of Bihari workers, who work and live in sub-human conditions and have no social or political rights. Most such workers are heavily indebted and enter into unequal annual contracts with land-owners. They overwork their own families to fulfil the contract’s terms. The widespread prevalence of such conditions encourages Haryana’s state functionaries to imagine that that’s the norm and it could be extended to modern industry as well.
The third, and most important, factor is the conscious policy adopted by Haryana leaders right since the early 1970s to promote the state as an investment destination by guaranteeing “industrial peace†based on the outright suppression of labour rights. The then Chief Minister Bansi Lal decided that this could be best achieved through the prevention of formation of any stable trade unions. In the 1970s, the police would every fortnight round up worker-activists, especially those trying to set up a union, and badly thrash them and illegally detain them for days. Such treatment was often extended to middle class sympathisers who tried to help workers draft petitions or contact other unions. Any agitation, however peaceful, would be repressed with brute force. No rallies would end without broken bones.
This writer is personally familiar with this scenario, particularly in the Faridabad-Ballabhgarh belt. In those days, the lower judiciary in Haryana was so hostile towards trade unions that it was virtually impossible to get bail even for patently trumped-up offences.
The Haryana police was thus blooded a long, long time ago in anti-worker violence. The same culture and prejudices have now been transported into 21st century Gurgaon. The only difference between then and now is the current preponderance of the neoliberal belief that unions are “artificial†; they “distort†the market, much in the way cartels do, and therefore must be made illegal or irrelevant.
This belief is incompatible with the Constitutionally guaranteed right of association. It also ignores the fact that trade unions are a natural, spontaneous response to capital, embodying the rights of association and collective bargaining. They are absolutely irreplaceable in conditions like India’s, which are marked by an unlimited supply of labour, the shrinking of work in agriculture, forced migration to the cities, and persistently high unemployment. Today, employment is growing at only 1.2 percent a year, or half the rate 20 years ago, when GDP growth was slower. In a situation like this, individual workers have simply no bargaining power to negotiate a living wage, leave alone employment security.
Today, a strong anti-labour union sentiment runs among the elite. This is related to, and reflected in, recent judicial pronouncements—such as the SAIL judgment upholding contract labour and numerous cases banning bandhs—which weaken the rights to unionise and strike. These legitimise union-smashing and strike-breaking. This climate has encouraged employers to launch a powerful offensive through legal and illegal lockouts and unannounced closures and sacking of workers, while bypassing Section 25 of Industrial Disputes Act.
Over the past 15 years, the number of person-days lost in lockouts has greatly exceeded the number lost due to strikes. According to the latest Economic Survey, the number of strikes has decreased from 540 in 1999 to 255 in 2003 and 252 in 2004, while the person-days lost in lockouts have exceeded those lost in strikes by 60 to 800 percent. In this vitiated climate, many foreign companies have resorted to practices which they would not dare employ at home—for instance, breaking unions or refusing the right of collective bargaining.
For example, the Constitution of Japan—which has the most investment in Gurgaon—guarantees the right to work and says, “Standards for wages, hours, rest and other working conditions shall be fixed by law …†and “the right of workers to organise and bargain and act collectively is guaranteed.†Recently, Toyota established a car factory in Canada, where unions flourish, in preference to the southern US, where they don’t exist. Similarly, South Korea is known for a high level of industrial unrest and strikes. Labour militancy there resembles the vigorous aggressive unionism of Europe in the early 20th Century. The same companies, however, demand a submissive unorganised workforce in Gurgaon.
Such double standards and violations of Constitutional rights must not be tolerated. India shouldn’t demean itself by becoming a Banana Republic, which guarantees foreign capital unlimited freedom to exploit Indian workers. The time has come to build a massive resistance movement. This demands a major initiative on the part not just of workers, but all those who believe in the dignity of labour, decency in public life and industrial democracy.
The Honda dispute is India’s first labour landmark of the 21st Century. It should trigger new thinking—for a charter to reform our existing labour relations paradigm. We must replace weak laws that employers have sabotaged with strong ones, and create job security with humane-level wages. What’s needed is a thorough reform of industrial relations and labour laws, whereby minimum wages are upgraded, and union-smashing is criminalised and punished. The labour conciliation machinery in most states simply doesn’t work. Nor do industrial courts function effectively. We need to revamp these and create an effective grievance-redressal system. A new labour charter is the only means through which the producers of wealth can get a stake and a voice in India’s growth.—
