May Day Message 2007

"Work should be a Decree for Development"

Introduction

Come all ye heavy laden and feel your freedom!

Every year 1st of May is celebrated as a day of solidarity of workers all over the world, irrespective of nationality, religion or political affiliations. Once again that great day is here, a day of grand celebrations and at the same time, as the situation demands, an occasion for rethinking whether the solidarity of workers is in conformity with the intention of the One who decreed work. Worker, human being entrusted with the privilege of being part of creation, perseverance and development, is by nature not mere chattel but partners with the Creator, and that his actualization can be attained only in partnership with the Creator realizing His likeness embedded in us. There is no magical solution but only the ‘sweat on the forehead’ for the fulfillment of man that leads to the development of society and thereby his own liberation. Unite all workers under the decree of our Master to preserve the nature for us and our progeny. Forget not, we are called to enjoy the great gift of freedom!!

India Emerges or Not?

The answer to fundamental question how India is going would be positive, growth-oriented, symbolically green light etc; does the green light shine upon all the sectors remain another question.

Statistics available indicate that our economy is doing well with reasonable growth in GDP with a strong Indian Rupee. India has the largest share of foreign remittance amounting to around $ 22 billion. Meantime the supply of essential commodities had dropped resulting in hike in food product prices, inflation graph therefore shows upward trend.

Tourism shows steady increase with record occupancy in hotels and travel. Along with tourism, infrastructure engineering, shopping, air and land travel will also receive its due share in growth. Internet and cell phone users have increased considerably, and television with its lucrative promotional capacity by way of advertisements is witnessing more than dozen new channels every year and is anticipated to be more profitable than our greatest entertainment media, the cinema. Construction on the other hand has seen a boom with the continued middle-class obsession for possessing a house and the market is expected to be positive.

As far as the Services sector is concerned trade, hotels, transport and communication services are continuing their growth at double-digit rates for the fourth successive year. Impressive progress in information technology (IT) and IT-based services, both rail and road traffic, and fast addition to existing stock of telephone connections, particularly mobiles, played a key role in such growth. Growth in financial services comprising banking, insurance, real estate and business services has maintained a steady growth reaching 11.1 per cent in 2006-07.

India is the world’s largest democracy, which provides unarguably one of the durable and stable civil societies in the world. With over 540 million between the age group of 18-34 years, which is almost 55 per cent of total population, India is one of the youngest countries in the world with adequate productive energy available to emerge as an economic power, but then what about the people as whole?

Least is Large!

The Indian labour force, behind all our developments, is constituted of both the unorganized and the organized sector. Unfortunately the term "industrial relations" focus largely on the organized sector and the unorganized sector covering ninety three percent of the work force (NSSO, 1999-2000), is considered least and hardly receives any attention.

Though this sector produces 3/2 of national GDP they are an unprotected lot as they do not benefit from any legislation or even the trade unions. There are various laws partially or fully applicable to the unorganized sector workers: Minimum Wage Act, Contract Labour Act, Maternity Benefit Act, Inter-State Migrant Workmen’s Act and Workmen Compensation Act are few of them; despite these laws they still remain as industrial outcasts. Definitions given without considering the nature of establishment also distance them from the protection of law under the pretext that they do not meet the minimum requirements. Unless sincere human approach is made disregarding the technicalities of the existing laws to include this large number of workforce that helps the nation gallop, these workers will remain least and eventually imperil progress. . They are also not fully enjoying the freedom of speech, freedom of association against discrimination and right to livelihood and are deprived of all labour rights which ILO and Law direct. Sadly the most vulnerable in the unorganized sector are children, women and migrants, who are also closely connected with felonious human trafficking.

Child Labour

Poor children in India still begin work at a very young and tender age. Many children have to work to help their families and some families expect their children to continue the family business at a young age. Children forced out of broken families, escaping harassment by step-fathers/mothers or sold by alcoholic parents to support their vices are the worst afflicted. Laws and policies remain in papers. After 59 years of independence and over a decade after India became a signatory to the United Nations Convention on Child Rights, nightmares like ‘Nithari’ are staring at our children. Statistics reveal that India has 17 million child labourers, the highest in the world. Lack of awareness and respect for the basic rights of a child among parents and greed for cheap labour of employers has lead to widespread violation of laws meant to protect chil

dren. As a result hundreds of thousands toil in homes, streets, sweetshops etc in miserable conditions without ever getting a glimpse of the beauty of childhood.

Women workers

Once Jawaharlal Nehru has said, "You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women." - In a country where women are venerated as Goddess, Mother, Sister etc, their plight in the domestic, social and employment spheres are shamefully deplorable. Violence against women is increasing day by day in spite of women organizations for justice and protection for women’s rights. It is quite annoying that since women law-makers and law-keepers are rife in the government systems, crime against women not only continues unabated but has taken on many new forms and colours. Women are often targets of revenge carried out publicly by humiliation in the most abusive manners including stripping and molesting, especially of women from Dalit communities. There has been little protest from men, who are more concerned about family and community honour. The so-called cultural vanguards remain content with the forced silence of helpless victims, and so is the law served with the pretext of no-complaints. While watching courtroom weeping, stammering and grief-stricken looks of the hapless women (teenagers) at the indecent interrogations of professional perverts one may wonder, is it inconceivable for our moral guardians that the law proceedings are conducted without taking into consideration of our society’s cultural psyche? Our most venerated devijis, mathajis and bhahanjis may wait for …

Migrant workers

Ever since migration to gulf region started, Indian Government and other social welfare organizations were being knocked at to safeguard the rights and interests of migrant workers. We have thousands of migrant workers who lost all the valuables in the snares prepared by agents and returned only to find themselves dispossessed, apart from those who

suffered untold miseries in foreign prisons and squalid labour camps.

It would be worth a study to find out why migration takes place or what are the reasons that give birth to migration? In some cases due to search for a living while in some other cases to survive from dangerous social conditions such as war, communal conflicts, terrorist attacks, ethnic violence etc. Rarely though, we have cases where migration serves an opportunity to assert his/her human dignity and talent; this reason should necessarily be eliminated in the interest of our own prosperity and nationalism.

Today we are well organized to realize the plight of migrant workers, both national and international, who brave separation from their families to face the ordeals of migration. In a neo-liberalized global market economy where cut-throat capitalism prevails, poor working conditions, physical and psychological abuses, discrimination and racism, stripping of human dignity and treated as a tradable commodity, are increasingly becoming the definitive experience of many migrants today.

Unemployment and Poverty

NSSO’s 61st Round large-scale survey shows a decline in unemployment rate from 2.1 per cent during 1983-1994 to 1.6 per cent during 1993-2000; however it shows a marginal increase to 3.1 per cent during 2000-05.Employment opportunities are growing faster than ever, especially technically and academically skilled personnel are finding it easier to get well paid jobs. Advent of many foreign companies has raised a big demand for well qualified hands. Meantime traditional businesses, handloom, fishing, small scale industries, are suffering being unable to cope with the highly competitive modern industry. As a result more people are becoming unemployed in the traditional businesses and due to lack of requisite qualifications and trainings they are unable to find jobs in the modern industrial units. Unfortunately no concrete measures are taken

to relocate them and safeguard their rights to a decent living.

Unemployment leads to poverty and so does our life style. We had days of very low income but people had the comfort of creditors not knocking at their doors. Today, though income has increased manifold, more people are debtors mainly because of their reckless living. A recent five member family suicide note blamed financial problems for their ill-fate; but the family had its own house, car, well employed engineer son, and the only daughter doing a professional course in a far away metropolitan city. Who will tell our literate generation that living should be justified by the means we have, not desires?

It seems people are drained of their mental prowess to resist the addictive power of advertisements and consequently enticed to take a very expensive route to poverty. The debtor-producing installment institutions tempting into posh, colorful living are also contributing copiously to concealed poverty and eventually to the disgraceful ill-fate.

A decree for development

A beautiful parable of the laborers in the vineyard in the scriptures (Mt. 20) tells of God’s justice of providing equally though they turn up at different times. In creation we are called to "subdue the earth" (Gen 1:26-28) and to make the world fruitful, that is associating with the Creator in His continued work on earth to preserve the world for its inhabitants according to His justice. As such we are duty bound to accept work as the divine decree for our existence and development. Are we encouraging a work culture? Are all the booming entertainment industries, merry-making projects in the name of tourism, exotic cuisine corners, lavishly sponsored sports, not our propensity towards revelry? It is this very revelry that brought destruction to many mighty Empires. Those who strain their throats to shout "Jai Kissan" may look at the living conditions of our blessed farmers and of the dream-sellers, ball-throwers,

nail-biters, stage jokers etc. It is time we sincerely strive to create a work culture where labour gets priority over capital, in other words worker gets priority over profit. Sedation never cures but only weakens. So is our refuge in revelry, it impairs progress.

Conclusion

One of the solutions lies in the organization of the unorganized workers and upholding the dignity of work and workers. This needs the action of the trade unions, labour movements, labour facilitation centers that should take up the issues of labourers. It would be facilitating enactment of better labour legislations and their efficient enforcement mechanism. Commission for Labour of Catholic Bishops Conference of India is committed to strengthening all the labour initiatives which leads to the dignity of workers and eventually to the development of the nation. I wish all the best to the working class brethren and pray to Almighty to shower His Choicest Blessings on those who are cooperating for the creation of a new world where the dignity of men is respected and accepted.

With Best Wishes and Prayers, Jesus in Our Lord.

Most Rev. Joshua Mar Ignathios
Chairman,
CBCI Commission for Labour
New Delhi