“Namma” Metro- A Project Built Upon the Illegal Wage Theft of Migrant Workers
Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL), a joint venture of Government of India and the State Government of Karnataka, is the agency for building, operating and expanding the “Namma Metro” ("Our Metro" in Kannada) network. The BMRCL started constructing Bangalore Metro Rail in April 2015 and after completion of first phase it had planned for the second phase, there are 6 routes that are being constructed with huge investments from foreign banks. Although there is no source which gives aggregated information regarding the total percentage of foreign bank investments in Bengaluru metro, some instances regarding this is as follows. A 2013 figure says Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) was funding 45% of the budget. To implement the almost 23 km long Gottigere to Nagavara reach (Line - 6), BMRCL got a loan from European Investment Bank (EIB) which approved a multi tranche loan of Euro 500 million and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) approved a loan of USD 335 million. That is 52% from foreign banks out of the total budget of USD 1,785.00 million for this line. In 2021, BMRCL secured a $318 million loan from JICA, and a $500 million loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to fund construction of the Outer Ring Road-Airport metro. The State and Union governments will contribute US$530 million, and the Karnataka Government will pay an additional US$370 million for land acquisition. That is, 47% of the budget is coming from foreign banks for this line.
With an objective to understand the conditions of the workers constructing this heavily foreign funded project, AICCTU started visiting the worker camps and interacting with them in the construction sites. We will point out some important insights and conversations that came out of these visits.
By neoliberal design, the lowest ranks of the workers, who constitute the majority, are mostly inter-state migrant workers from West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, MP, Uttarakhand etc. There exists a hierarchy of contractors. For example, companies like Starworth, Texmaco or L&T being at the top and sub-contractors (thekedars) with local connections with teams of migrant workers hailing from a given village, being at the bottom. None of the workers have been signed up with a formal contract.
Most workers work for 12 hrs for 6 days. But there is no paid weekly off-day. So, some workers also work for 7days a week. Overtime wage for work exceeding 8 hrs a day is not paid. Idea of PF and ESI is alien to most of the workers. Majority of the workers do not have registration under BOCW or inter-state migrant workers or any other governmental scheme.
Depending on the skillset of the workers the salary varies. The lowest rank of the workers are paid from Rs 9,000 to Rs 15,000 per month. That is at best around Rs 500-550 per day for 12 hours of work (Considering Rs 12,000 as the monthly salary, some workers have also reported Rs 400 per day figure). However, the minimum wage guideline says that even for an unskilled worker, Rs 639 has to be paid for 8 hours work in a day. Considering the rule that double payment has to be made for the extra 4 hours work that they do, the payment according to the law has to be Rs 1278 per day. That is, most of the workers are not even paid half the salary they should have been paid by law. Here, we are not even considering the allowances that they are supposed to get if they work at a height or in a tunnel, as most of them do.
For some jobs requiring special skills, there is a stark division of labour, according to where they come from. Workers from West Bengal are mostly involved in laying tracks, workers from Bihar are mostly involved in painting, workers from Rajasthan are mostly involved with marble works etc.
On how cost of labour-power is determined, Karl Marx observed in Wage Labor and Capital - “It is the cost required for the maintenance of the labourer as a labourer, and for his education and training as a labourer. Therefore, shorter the time required for training up to a particular sort of work, the smaller is the cost of production of the worker, the lower is the price of his labour-power, his wages. In those branches of industry in which hardly any period of apprenticeship is necessary and the mere bodily existence of the worker is sufficient, the cost of his production is limited almost exclusively to the commodities necessary for keeping him in working condition.”
Thus, this divison of labour according to where they come from, helps the corporates to keep the wages low by avoiding the cost to train the workers separately in these special skills, as the workers are already trained due to the skill being part of their family occupation.
Delayed wage payment is common and the wages are usually paid in cash, although there we found some mentions of bank transfers. The wage is paid by the sub-contractor (thekedar, who is the lowest layer of contractor most of the time having no official licence), however, the guideline says that the payment has to be made directly by the company who is having official contract.
Non-payment of wages is very common. For instance, in the Reach 6 site of the project, after some dispute between Simplex (the contractor) and BMRCL, more than 30 thekedars and 500 workers had not been paid for five months (September 2020 to January 2021). The workers stayed in the city for a few months waiting for their wages; however, because they are forced to live from hand to mouth, they had to go back to their villages. After number of representations to the Central Labour Department with details of workers from AICCTU and protests by the thekedars, the workers, as of now, have only got a month of the pending pay.
Conditions in the labour camps:
Usually 8-12 workers share single temporary rooms made of tin walls and sheds. Many times no ceiling fan or proper ventilation exists in these rooms. Numbers of toilets are low in comparison with number of workers resident in the camps. For example, in the Kenchenahalli camp, there are about 14 toilets for 450 workers of which the majority lie defunct. There are open common bathing spaces that get filled by tankers. The bathing water was extremely dirty in all places and was seen to have floating chunk of dirt and algae in it. The workers in a lot of camps complained that there is lack of water supply, also there is no water supply in the lavatories and there is no provision of cleaning them periodically. Lots of garbage dumps could be seen around in all the camps and the surrounding is extremely unhygienic. Many workers complained of bed bugs filling their rooms. The workers have formed groups and each group runs a small mess the expenses for which are managed by the workers themselves.
A committee to monitor the conditions of the workers in these camps were formed after an order given by the Karnataka High Court in Samuel Sathyasheelan vs Union Of India case represented by Comrade Clifton D’ Rozario (National Secretary of AICCTU). Although the order was passed in 2014, the committee was inactive. It was reinitiated during the COVID times after repeated representations from AICCTU, and we too became part of it. Even then, it was really difficult to carry out this exercise. We were not allowed inside the worker camps and the site most of the time. The reason might have been that our reports from these camp visits used to make the committee really uncomfortable.
To the workers we have spoken, many from their families migrate to different cities including Bangalore for some work in unorganized sector time to time. Almost all the workers are from peasant family, and most of them go back during crop season. On asking why they left their villages, unanimously they said because farming has become unprofitable for them, livelihood is difficult in villages. However, most of them said, if those are from rural area are given a chance with profitable farming they would surely like to move back to their native place.
Some selected conversations with workers are as follows –
A worker from Assam in a labour camp said that he owns around 6 acres of land, of which a large part is used for tea cultivation. But now they don't earn much from it and also since his family has grown bigger that he has to take care. He said – “My mother used to say that Farming is Supreme, Business is in the Middle, while Slavery (wage slavery) is the Worst work to do. But now conditions are different, Slavery has become Supreme while Farming is being sidelined. Farming is the noblest occupation, farmers feed everyone, but now one can't buy anything from the earnings through farming.”
We spoke to a migrant security guard from West Bengal who is posted in Dairy Circle and Lakkasandra (Metro line and station construction site). He recently came to Bangalore from Haryana. He said they are given Rs 15,500 salary for 12hrs daily shift for 30 days. There is no weekly off and no OT is paid. They sometimes work for 36 hours long (3 continuous shifts) to earn some extra money to meet their need. He said the farming in his village (Gopiballabpur, Paschim Medinipur district) has become so unprofitable that he has spent 11 months in cities to run his family. He said, “We (security guards) still get ESI and PF but the labours working do not get it.” A huge number of them are not registered under any welfare board like BOCW. He himself said that if he filed a complaint his job will be lost if they all do it together there can be some effect.
We met a worker Ajay who is from Bihar outside the labor camp. He said that he did not get salary for the last two months, so did not go for work that day. He demanded his pending salary from the contractor and had declared that he'll not go to work if not paid. He was working under the contractor for more than 2 years and was working in RV collage metro site for the last 5-6months. Rs 400/day is the wage. No question of ESI or PF. He said that their family owns very small piece of land in the village (he said 1 katha) and also he is not getting farm work in the village so had to migrate to Bangalore. He memorized my number and later gave a call from his phone which was inside the camp.
We met two other workers on a site who were from West Bengal. They came to Bangalore 3 months back and said they have only 1-2 bigha of land. The situation is such that after they send money home from the city, only then seeds can be sown in their fields. Wages were the same. I could not talk further as they were busy in work. They wrote my number on a block of concrete with a broken piece of brick as they did not have a phone.
We noted that most of the workers cannot afford to bring their families in Bangalore. However, in one labor camp some workers from Bengal stayed with their wives, these ladies are employed in low-paid work like cleaning the sites after work. Some workers like security guards and other skilled ones like driver, electrician etc, are enrolled in ESI. However, they said they do not have cards to avail the facilities. Other workers (with Rs 400 - 550 per day wage) are not enrolled in any scheme. They said, if something happens the thekedars take care.
Workers are extremely dependent on these thekedars regarding a lot of matters like payments, getting new jobs when one is over, medical assistance in case of accident and illness, travel etc. Thekedars are most of the time from the same village or from a nearby village of the respective workers. So, in this alien city, without any official agreement of work, without any guarantee of pay, without any safety or security of work, the workers only have their thekedars to depend upon. They cannot, most of time, express their grudges to them in the fear of losing the relationship, and thus, losing the contact to work in the city. They also cannot express their grudges to the company (the contractor under BMRCL) directly, as this would result in further worsening of their relationship with the thekedars, without whose support neither they can get work nor their payments. So, in this precarious and vulnerable situation the workers are forced into a semi-bonded feudalistic relationship with their thekedars. This relationship is used by the big corporates like L&T, Simplex, ITD etc, who a government entity BMRCL has hired. In line with the neoliberal design, this relationship is used specifically to keep their salary lesser than half they deserve by law, keep them in inhumane living conditions and refrain them from bargaining their rights specified in law by getting unionized.
Another aspect of this neoliberal design is to keep the unorganised workers undocumented. By making them anonymous, it becomes easy for the state to dodge their responsibility and not to adhere to the laws and guidelines formulated by them to wear the mask of a “Welfare State”. Under this mask, it keeps on facilitating super profits for the domestic and foreign corporates through super exploitation. There are some social welfare schemes like BOCW and e-Shram which has some benefits like compensation in case of accidental death and injury, ensuring occupational safety and health etc. The onus of registering in these schemes is on workers and no responsibility is imposed upon the employers. Due to lack of information, lack of access to internet and lack of proficiency to use digital means the metro construction workers have to depend on funded NGOs or middlemen for their registration. As mentioned earlier, most of these workers are not registered and thus, do not even get these meagre benefits. Because the employers reap the superprofits from the labour of these workers, they should thus be held accountable to labour laws. However, these social welfare schemes help the corporates to refrain from such a responsibility and make it an affair solely between the state and workers. Moreover, by only offering social welfare schemes, the state makes the individual’s identity as a worker secondary and that of beneficiary in a social welfare scheme primary. Thus, pushing the question of labour rights into the background.
The Non-Inclusive “Namma”-
It should be clear by now that Namma Metro’s “namma” is not inclusive of the workers who are building it. However, will the great majority of the people of Bengaluru be benefited by this project built upon illegal theft of labour of these migrant workers? Will this project bring the BMRCL’s vision of “Garden City's travel partner to all sections of commuters in Bengaluru” into reality? The answer is a clear NO. Research by Gitam Tiwari of IIT Delhi, published in EPW, shows with overwhelming evidence that capital-intensive metro rail systems serve only a small proportion of the total trips in cities in developing countries such as India. Other forms of public transport (like buses and suburban railways) are fairly inexpensive and thus covers most of the trips. The increasing amount of private and foreign capital being invested in these projects have made these metro services unaffordable for the majority. Further, metro generally enjoys numerous tax benefits in India which are not offered to the bus system, which carries at least five times more trips. Thus, BMRCL’s “Namma” is not even inclusive of the majority of Begulurians. Working class and lower middle class section of the city will not be able to afford this service, rather, a section of middle class and upper middle class would be its market. To capture this market, Namma Metro, which is built upon the sweat and blood of migrant workers, is a venture to make massive profits for the foreign investments.
Moreover, according to the EIA Report (August 2017), a total of 838 households will be affected by Namma Metro project. Based on the average household size of city it is estimated that about 3890 persons will be affected by the Project. The loss of livelihood estimated under the project is 1045. A study published in EPW shows that out of 223 households of Basaveshwara Nagar and Jai Bheema Nagar slums, who were displaced by this project in 2007-08, 151 households got the “rehabilitation package”. For the displaced households, the access to multiple employment opportunities they had in the city were lost due to forced relocation. The paper states that: “access to facilities such as education, healthcare, and markets became difficult due to relocation, forcing women to spend more to avail these, thereby impoverishing them further. Hence, one can state that spatial relocation only reinforces the economic and social marginalisation of poor urban women by curtailing their economic mobility. Moreover, any changes in the location caused by developmental activities, such as the metro project (infrastructure), perpetuates spatial inequality.”
To sum-up, this non-inclusive “Namma” metro project on one hand excludes the majority of the people staying in Bengaluru and on the other hand creates a playground for super-exploitation of the migrant workers constructing it. Because of a conscious effort by the neoliberal regime to break the backbone of agriculture, farmers are forced to migrate to cities in order to sustain themselves. Rural unemployed farmers are transformed into “reserve army” of cheap labour in the cities to be conveniently super-exploited by the foreign and domestic capital. Hopping from cities to cities in search of work, they are left with a precarious and unstable environment which restricts them from getting organized under trade unions. Being strongly attached with farming and their villages possibly gives them some sense of security in their majorly uncertain occupation of construction work.
However, they spend most of their time in cities getting exploited by the corporates and thekedars. Therefore, there is a good possibility of organizing them in the cities. The demands of better living conditions, minimum wage, benefits like PF and ESI, safety measures from work related hazards, would constitute the core issues. In a long term, demand of providing the social welfare benefits under BOCW as a right and putting its onus on the employer should also be taken up. Movement has to be directed against the companies (contractor) and BMRCL. Thekedars are another entity who act as the agents of exploitation for the corporates. These middle men eat up a section of earnings of the workers without putting in any labour. Movements in the demand of reducing their commission should also be thought of in long term. However, with all of this said, we will face two main challenges while organizing this section of construction workers, especially, workers working in such megaprojects. Firstly, the duration of stay in one location of these workers are extremely low. They tend to stay for 6-8 months in one labour camp and then mostly go back to their villages. While they come back to the cities, there is a high possibility of the change in the location of work and stay. The project he’s working on might change, or the site of work might change, or, a lot of time they shift to a different city altogether. Thus, coordination with organizations in different cities and villages, to keep in touch with the workers might be helpful. Secondly, the workers are so much bonded with the thekedars, as described previously, that even though they are discontent, it becomes difficult for them to act on it at this stage. However, we have to think of ways to overcome these challenges and devise tactics to organize them. Also, with the impact of working class movements intensifying in other sectors, objective conditions of this section getting organized will become more favourable.