Migrant workers in city get a raw deal

Alexander69 · Joined: 14 Nov 2007 Posts: 1 Karma: 0 (0)

The death of two Oriya construction workers and the maiming of another in a building collapse in the city last month have served to spotlight the woeful working and living conditions of the migrant workers, who leave their villages in West Bengal, Orissa, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu for the distant shores of Kerala in search of work.

However, the September 13 accident also threw light, inadvertently, on the exploitation of these workers by labour contractors and construction companies as well as trade union leaders who act hand in glove with them.Many local leaders of prominent trade unions allegedly get fat kickbacks from the companies and labour contractors. It is an open secret in the construction business that many trade union leaders own chunks of real estate in many parts of the city.

Kochi is the epicentre of the real estate boom in the State. Hundreds of crores worth of construction projects, mainly apartment blocks, are ongoing in the city and its satellite towns.The construction labour scene has been dominated by two prominent trade unions. Apparently because of the high stake involved, they zealously guard their fiefdom and do not let in other unions.

In a strange understanding with builders, these unions have worked out a labour supply formula of 30:30:40 - which means, the two unions will each supply 30 per cent of the labour requirement for any construction project of Real estate Kochi, the rest 40 per cent can be supplied by labour contractors who import workers from other States.But, the trade union leaders often cheat their own ranks by letting the contractors, some of them are themselves trade union leaders, to supply most of the workers.

Most of the rules remain on paper as far as the migrant construction workers in Kochi are concerned - like elsewhere in the unorganised sector in the country.But in a ‘labour-militant’ Kerala, some of the trade union leaders, who are supposed to protect the workers from exploitation, have themselves turned out to be exploiters.