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IPWA held a 2-day national Workshop on ‘Working Women in India: Issues and Challenges’ on 18th and 19th June at Dhanbad, Jharkhand. On the first day AIPWA held a march, which culminated in a mass meeting. This was addressed by AICCTU General Secretary Swapan Mukherjee, CPIML MLA in the Jharkhand Assembly, Mahendra Singh, AIPWA General Secretary Kumudini Pati and other activists and leaders of the women’s movement from Jharkhand, UP, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Bengal, Assam, Karbi Anglong, Punjab, Rajasthan, Pondicherry and Andhra Pradesh.

The workshop began with AIPWA President Srilata Swaminathan explaining the context in which the workshop had been organized. She said that all over the world despite great progress in technology and science, conditions of work and security are getting worse instead of better. And in this worsening scenario, women are the worst sufferers. In our country, women workers in every sector have suffered the impact of liberalization – whether in agrarian labour or modern export processing zones. She stressed that while all the issues of wages, employment etc. seem to be economic issues, they are in fact part of a crisis of the present political economy. The purpose of the workshop was to closely examine exploitation and work conditions experienced by crores of working women in India today, in order to better address the challenge of organizing them into a powerful movement.

Following this, activists from various parts of the country presented papers and studies, followed by discussions. Ajanta Lohit from UP, Nagamani from Andhra and Shashi Yadav from Bihar presented papers on women agrarian labourers. In this sector, there are abysmally low wages (no minimum wages) overall, and apart from this women’s wages are unequal. Whereas in Andhra, agrarian labourer women face harassment and repression by the feudal lords and the police, their counterparts in Bihar and UP face feudal violence, often by private armies. Shashi Yadav’s paper narrated several experiences of struggles against rapes, sexual exploitation, instances of women being paraded naked, and the continuance of the ‘doli’ system of sexual exploitation. In the discussion that followed these papers, delegates debated what approach should be taken towards harvesters being used, especially in middle Bihar, to replace agrarian labourers. On the whole, it was felt that one should demand that committees consisting of employers, administration and labour leaders should be appointed to monitor the situation, in order to guarantee minimum employment. Corruption and denial of employment of women in government schemes also figured as one important issue.

Overall it was felt that a women’s cell should be created within the Khet Mazdoor Sabha, to address the specific issues of women and a central legislation for agrarian labourers should be enacted.

Medha Thatte from Pune Shahar Molkarin Sangathana and Shramik Mahila Morcha, Chaitali Sen from West Bengal and Sunita from Delhi presented papers on the issues and struggles of domestic workers. It came out that in Pune, domestic workers and safai (sanitation) Karmcharis (employees) have even helped organize other sections of workers – even industrial workers. In other words, their struggles have not remained at an economic level, instead they have assumed a vanguard role in the working class movement. In West Bengal there were instances of domestic workers fighting against anti-socials, police and liquor brewers. Besides, issues like lack of civic amenities, increase in wages, holidays etc. have been taken up. These workers have become active in AIPWA programmes and have been successful in introducing middle class women to the AIPWA movement.

In Delhi, while domestic workers remain unorganized, there is a high degree of child labour, severe violence and sexual exploitation and harassment (though few admit to the latter, for fear of losing employment). It was felt that a national law needed to be enacted with a policy ensuring minimum wages, vacations, social security, and health care for domestic workers, as well as shelters, free transport facility and toilets for their use between hours of work.

The situation of health workers was discussed at the workshop. Here, the primary issue is the threat posed by privatization of the health sector. For example, there is a plan afoot to dismantle the govt. health service. Other issues are that of sexual harassment and lack of safety, recourse to contract system of labour, lack of welfare measures. AIPWA, it was decided, must intervene in every issue and struggle of midwifes (dai), nurses, attendants, lab technicians and other women workers in the health sector, and resist efforts by the govt. to divide them on the basis of categories of work.

Delegates also discussed the situation of bidi workers (a paper was presented on their situation in Nawada). Here, the issue of low and unequal wages was central. Kanaklata Dutta talked about the tea plantation workers in Assam, who continue to work in condition reminiscent of colonial enslavement and exploitation. She cited several examples of winding up of tea estates resulting in large scale unemployment. Gunni Oraon from Jharkhand spoke about the exploitation of coal workers who suffer from the worst kind of sexual exploitation, while Anita from Bihar presented a paper on brick-kiln workers who are denied minimum benefits accruing from the Factory Act or the Mines Act. She mentioned several instances of murder, rape and sexual exploitation there too. There was also a paper on dalit landless women of Punjab countryside who are forced to pick cow-dung and garbage in the cowsheds of the farmers. There were also papers on female weavers of Banaras in UP and construction workers of Jaipur in Rajasthan. A paper on small industries of Kanpur talked about the plight of women being thrown out of job due to closure or sickness of industries and cases of suicides as a consequence of joblessness.

The main speakers at the workshop, Comrade Swapan Mukherjee, AICCTU General Secretary, said that the discussions in the workshop would go a long way in helping to organize various sections of women workers, which was an important task before AICCTU. He emphasized the vanguard role of the working class in the women’s movement and the importance of organising working class women as a political force in this phase of globalisation and economic liberalization. He said that the women workers would have to study the unorganized labourers’ bill and raise appropriate demands so as to bring within our fold the vast section of female unorganized labour. He said that the working class must understand that economic liberalization and communalism are two sides of the same coin. He suggested several steps to coordinate the work of AIPWA and AICCTU.

The workshop was concluded by Kumudini Pati, who suggested that a national charter of common demands of women workers be formulated and an all India campaign be started to build struggle on this charter. The main points in the charter were:

(i) The right to work be made a fundamental constitutional right.

(ii) Employment Guarantee Act be implemented along with provisions for unemployment allowance.

(iii) Guarantee of equal wages for women

(iv) Passing of a Domestic Workers Bill

(v) A central legislation for agricultural workers.

(vi) Govt. of India prepare a policy paper on working women.

(vii) Guarantee of Job security and social benefits for women workers.

(viii) Stopping privatisation of health and education.

(ix) Loans for self employment of women at low interest rates.

(x) Implementation of 33% reservation for women in elected bodies.

(xi) Implementation of Supreme Court directive on sexual harassment at the workplace.

Steps such as formation of a women’s cell in AICCTU and in the agricultural labourers’ organization, sectoral initiatives to organize women workers, introducing separate columns for women workers’ issues and problems in Aadhi Zameen, Women’s Voice and Shramik Solidarity etc. were also proposed to give momentum to the work among working women.

— Uma