Who will be more powerful?

AS WE reopen the economy, we are going to witness a bitter battle for supremacy between the worker and the employer classes. By lifting lockdown measures, India has sent out the message of the economy taking precedence over the health emergency. And it is inevitable for a dominantly informal market like us. Before the millions of jobless workers settle down in their villages with uncertainty, the debates outside revolve around that pertinent question: will they ever come back to cities for work? This question is raging because of the torturous homecoming of workers from business centres, feeling abandoned. Also, when the exodus was at its peak, state governments started diluting labour laws. The changes in such laws have watered-down the already-flimsy labour protection offered in the informal market. And the unspoken belief behind these changes was that workers didn’t have any option to not work. This has revived the age-old polarisation between the worker and the employer classes.

Somehow, this polarisation never survived long in our polity—maybe due to its affiliation to Communist movements. But all along, the fault line remained—visible to a point of not erupting into a full-fledged class fighting, and also tolerable to a level that wouldn’t beget a violent expression. COVID-19 has provided a never-before-situation of deliberately halting the economy completely. None of the two sides had any role in it. But each now realises the importance of the other. The power for supremacy now rests on who will blink first.

The mass exodus due to the lockdown has widened this fault line. First, for over a decade now employers of the informal sector have been vocal about rising wage rates, even scarcity of labour. Official data, however, doesn’t support this argument. Second, their complain is mostly centered around the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) that guarantees 100 days of manual work at government wage rate. Trade associations have demanded that their work too should be brought under this Act to tide over labour scarcity. The point of contention is informal job seekers found

MGNREGA lucrative than to work in places far away from their villages. Cheaper foodgrain provided by states under the public distribution system has also led labourers to not opt for work that didn’t offer higher wages than MGNREGA. This is because food expenditure—a major percentage of overall household budget—has been low due to government subsidy. The job guarantee scheme and the cheaper foodgrain entitlement provided workers a rare bargaining tool to negotiate with employers on wages. If they didn’t offer better wages, they didn’t get labour.

Now there is panic among businesses as we reopen the economy. If truth be told, it would take months—if not years—before they come back to cities to work. Here, they would be economically wrecked. This would mean they would be also forced to take up jobs at low wage rates. This is how the employers perceive the situation. But, there is a catch. In villages, states are already planning to increase local livelihood options, again through schemes like

MGNREGA. Similarly, there are already provisions for free, but temporary food and cash transfers. Even if all the returning workers don’t get these facilities, they at least have the assured support of the government. In this situation, the working class will have a bargaining tool with their employers. The extended government support will further strengthen their negotiating power. On the other hand, the employers would have also got government support to facilitate faster return to normalcy. And for this, they need the working class, in big numbers, and quickly.

The battle has begun. If workers were stripped of their working rights, they now have an upper hand. But this is only if governments continue to help them with survival support. For both sides, it seems, governments are going to play a critical role. The question remains: which side will they tilt more?

The bitter battle for supremacy between the worker and the employer-classes has begun