Death of migrant labourers in TN: an urgent wake up call

The death of 11 construction workers in two separate accidents in Chennai this week has finally shed some light on the safety and living conditions of thousands of migrant labourers employed in Tamil Nadu. While one of them died when a crane collapsed at a Metro rail construction site in the city, where six others were also injured; 10 died at a suburban engineering college when the wall of an under construction stadium collapsed on them.[caption id=“attachment_414007” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Insecure life. Reuters[/caption] In both the cases, the police have made some initial arrests. Chennai Metro suspended all work pending a safety audit. The accidents, although tragic, offer an opportunity that the state needs to act upon to ensure that it stands by the legal guarantees that are due to the workers. With an ever increasing population of migrant workers, mostly from West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand and even Assam deployed in large numbers at various construction sites in the state, the issue was indeed going out of hand. Estimates show that more than a million migrants, most of them at the lowest level of construction work, are employed in the state. Academic literature on the issue also show that a large number of them belong to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. In fact, two pieces of legislation—the Interstate Migrant Workmen Act (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) 1979, and The Buildings and Other Construction Workers Act (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) 1996—guarantee adequate protection and reasonable living conditions to the migrant workers, whether employed in industries, agriculture or construction. The first Act is to regulate the working conditions of migrant workers and applies to any establishment that employs five or more inter-state workers. The Act makes registration of employees mandatory and strictly regulates the working conditions such as wages, allowances, equality and proper recording and maintenance of their employment details. It is illegal to employ workers without registration under the Act and the offenders can face punishment ranging from cancellation of licenses to prosecution. How many have been punished under the Act? The second Act is specifically meant for construction sites and applies to any establishment that employs 10 or more workers. This Act also makes registration of the workers mandatory and stipulates a host of conditions for the “safety, health and welfare” of the employees. The conditions are so specific and include food, health facilities, drinking water, quality of accommodation, creche facilities and a lot of welfare measures. Available information shows that these Acts are observed more in breach. The workers are distress migrants and are neither aware of their legal rights nor are empowered enough to demand them. Living conditions back home are so bad that they arrive in droves to take up any work that is available. They speak different languages and are totally alien to the local culture and hence live in their own ghettos and get transported to sites like cattle. Although they have substantial numbers, since they offer no vote bank, no political party has every taken up their cause. In fact, a key vulnerability that they face arises from their cultural and political marginalisation. The political influence of the contractors and construction companies also ensure that the workers remain ghettoised, silent and invisible. The migrant labourers are not only faceless, but are also unaccounted for in terms of numbers. In the absence of proper adherence to the two Acts; which also includes their registration, recording of employment details and their return; there is no reliable statistics on inter-state migrant workers. The data of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) is not reliable since it doesn’t capture the real migrant workers. Lack of registration and proper monitoring of migrants also have law and order consequences. Recently the NIA had busted a fake currency racket spread across the entire south India involving migrant construction workers from West Bengal. As a UNDP Human Development Report research paper on migration and human development in India notes, gaps in data and the understanding of the role of migration in livelihood strategies and economic growth, have led to inaccurate policies and lack of political commitment. Migrant workers are a dispensable commodity in maximising profits when local labour is far more expensive. For instance, while a local construction worker costs Rs 500 or more a day, a migrant worker is willing to do any work for Rs 250-350. This week’s accidents are one of the high human costs of labour migration. The UN report shows that the human cost of migration is high, not because of migration per se, but because of the poor implementation of laws. It’s time political parties and the government took a rational look at the faceless migrants who are building systems for the economic growth of the state. It’s both an ethical and a legal obligation.