Mundka fire: The deplorable working conditions for women
On May 13, 27 workers, including 21 women, were killed in a blaze that swept through an illegal factory in the Mundka area of Delhi. While most news stories termed it a disaster, the deaths of so many female workers show the asymmetries in the working conditions for women. The deaths also show that while the thrust of policies has been to get women into the workforce, there is an absence of discussion on the terms women are compelled to accept when they join it.
Speaking to one of the authors of this piece, the workers stated that they assembled, soldered, and packed 1,000 to 1,500 pieces of CCTV cameras, Wi-fi routers, and circuit adapters daily in three assembly lines run on two floors of the factory. They earned ₹6,500 per month in cash. They had no pay slips, contracts, or provident funds. In April, they negotiated a pay increase of ₹1,000, taking the monthly wage to ₹7,500 (₹288 a day). Even after the raise, their pay was less than half of Delhi’s minimum wage, which is ₹16,064 a month (₹618/day) for unskilled work, and ₹17,693 a month (₹681/day) for semi-skilled work. Despite the low pay, the factory attracted women workers because the employers allowed them to work in shifts (10 am to 7 pm). This meant that the women could do household work before starting paid work. In addition, the company allowed them to sit while working and installed fans on the assembly line. The women described these as improvements over many other factories they had worked in, including in textile export units where they stood for nine to 10 hours a day.
Successive central governments have projected women as the latent labour force to propel India’s economic growth. In a bid to improve India’s low female labour participation rate – which fell to 19% in 2020 from 26% in
2005 – the current government changed labour laws to make it easier to hire women in night shifts. But with its silence on appropriate treatment and preventative measures to ensure dignity at the workplace, the government appears to be more interested in projecting a seemingly progressive outlook to facilitate the entry of cheap female labour into the economy, than empowering women. This incident and the daily life struggle of millions of working-class women testify that no government has any agenda for dignified employment and well-being for women.
The apparent lack of consensus on this model can also be gauged from incidents when workers have stepped out to fight for their rights. For example, protests by Foxconn workers against their living conditions temporarily shut down the Chennai plant in December 2021. In Bangalore, garment workers demonstrated for days in 2016 for their right to access their provident fund accounts.
Each of these protests expose, like the
Mundka fire, the unsettled questions of decent working conditions, lack of social security, theft of minimum wages, and even the threat of loss of lives for working women. Despite the claim of women’s empowerment ringing through State discourse, the reality is different: Even when there is employment generation for women, it is primarily as casual, informal workers, with no minimum wage protections, or social security. Their working conditions are unregulated, they are often employed way below minimum wages, routinely paid less than male workers for the same work despite working more than eight hours a day, and often, the work entails long hours of standing, without any access to toilets.
The Maternity Entitlements Act, which provides 26 weeks of paid leave to women employed in the organised sector, leaves out women working without written contracts. This is when, as per the Periodic Labour Force Survey, only less than a third of all of India’s workers have written contracts. Further, the lack of Stateled provisions for child care (crèches) means that women are either forced to let go of work, or depend on kinship or other neighbourhood support, and find it more “suitable” to work in a factory such as in Mundka where the burden of housework can be “adjusted and balanced” along with paid work. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in America, which killed 146 garment workers, the majority of whom were immigrant women, propelled a new movement for safer work conditions. The Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh (2013), which killed 1,132, awoke the world to the hardship and working conditions of the majority of young women. It led to a global effort to transparently calculate the loss of income payments, as per International Labour Organization conventions, and take action on appropriate health care and compensation to the victims. India witnesses industrial accidents daily due to the criminal negligence of administrators and elected officials. The death of these young women workers in Mundka must lead us to proactive steps. The government must acknowledge the value of women’s lives, their work inside homes and offices, and guarantee their safety at the workplace.