Central trade unions have created a few successful unions with contract workers breaking the myth that contract workers cannot be part of unions.
The fact that they report to their contractors and can easily be sent away if they became members of unions has kept them mostly exposed to labour law violations. However Coca Cola management is currently in talks with the Centre of Indian Trade Unions on various demands made on behalf of contract workers in their factory in Dasna in Gaziabad Uttar Pradesh. It is one of the 49 factories it has in the country and among the countless factories its franchisees run.
It has 300 regular workers and 500 contract workers at all times and during the peak production season in the summer months, the number of contract workers increases to 700. The CITU union in the factory recognized by the management has about 300 contract workers as its members. And the good news they say is that the management is considering their demand to regularise the workers or at least to bring parity in the working conditions between regular and contract workers.
At the national level, the CITU management is also talking to the Coke management on the issue of parity of conditions.
The biggest victory for the contract workers at Coke so far has been concerning parity. This had to do with the canteens the workers ate at.
There were earlier three canteens one for the permanent staff, one for the staff and one for the contract workers. We protested and now the management has closed down two of the canteens and there is a single canteen for all. The workers even get their food coupons from the same place. The contract workers proved they were dependable as the rest, says Gaziabad CITU general secretary KN Tiwari
The Coca-Cola spokesperson puts it thus: “Inclusiveness and citizenship are the core values of Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt Ltd. Based on this philosophy, it is our endeavor to treat all stakeholders with fairness and respect.” It chose not to comment on the details.
The case of Allied Nippon the brake shoe factory in Gaziabad which was in the news after workers were accused of lynching a management personnel to death is another instance where a central trade union has successfully made a union of contract workers.
The union made a comeback of sorts when it called a hartal on September 7,8 and 9 . It took two years to rebuild the union after the violent death of the management personnel put workers in the dock.
There are just 160 permanent workers out of the 1,150 workers in Allied Nippon. And the hartal was successful, claims Tiwari giving all credit to the contract workers.
The demand there is again for parity of wages. While regular workers are earning Rs 15,000, the contract workers earn Rs 3,500 for the same job, says Tiwari.
The workers have begun getting provident fund and bonus now, he says, citing it as a major achievement of the union for contract workers.
In Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation, All India Trade Union Congress has a union which has 20,000 regular workers and 20,000 contract workers.
In fact the main struggle of the union currently is to fight for the rights of those workers who work on electric poles and are mostly contract workers, says Prakash Singh of the Uttar Pradesh AITUC.
Mother Dairy’s Hapur plant which has 1,100 contract workers and 150 permanent workers has a trade union of AITUC where these workers have membership.
Mother Dairy officials did not respond to queries about their union.
