Repulsing the employers' offensive

The police tried to rationalise the lathi-charge on the 25th afternoon as "retaliation" for an attack on them in the morning. But the two events happened at least five kilometres apart and with a five-hour gap.

The lathi-charge was not committed in the heat of the moment. It was a cold-blooded attempt to brutalise subdued bleeding workers. The police had no business to "retaliate." According to court directions, they must not wreak revenge or chase retreating crowds.

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In Haryana, the police were brazenly partisan towards the HMSI management right since trouble began in that 100 percent Japanese-owned factory in December when a Japanese manager assaulted a worker.

Soon, HMSI workers started unionising. The management suspended/dismissed dozens and illegally locked out 4,000. The Haryana administration worked hand in glove with it and prevented union formation.

The central issue at HMSI, then, was not wages -- which are Rs 4,200 p.m. after deductions -- but refusal to tolerate a union, forming which is a constitutional right.

In this, HMSI wasn't unique. According to an independent survey by the Centre for Education and Communication, 90 per cent-plus of the 800-plus large or medium industrial units in the Gurgaon-Manesar-Dharuhera belt don't allow the slightest union activity.

The general pattern in this prosperous enclave, where multinational corporations have invested, is: low wages, prevalence of casual labour and contract labour, arbitrary lockouts, extreme job insecurity, absence of skill-improvement schemes, and authoritarian shopfloor practices. This is a recipe for unrest.

The police perpetuates this retrograde pattern. That's its historic role. But what explains its propensity for anti-labour violence?

This has three sources. First, there is the macho aggressive culture of certain communities heavily represented in the police. This culture is also displayed in violent casteism (e.g. recent Dalit killings), reckless driving of Blueline buses, and khap or clan panchayats which order the murder of couples who marry against the "norm." Absence of social reform means this culture faces no resistance.

Secondly, Haryana has a long tradition of unfree/bonded labour and oppressive working conditions. Haryana has among the highest per capita income of all states, but its prosperity is based on merciless exploitation of heavily indebted Bihari workers, who work and live in sub-human conditions.

Such conditions' prevalence encourages Haryana's state functionaries to imagine that this norm should apply to modern industry.

The most important factor is Haryana's conscious policy since the early 1970s to attract investment by guaranteeing "industrial peace" by suppressing labour rights. Therefore, no stable unions must be permitted.

In the 1970s, the police would round up worker-activists every fortnight, and badly thrash them and illegally detain them for days. Any agitation, however peaceful, would be crushingly repressed. No rallies would end without broken bones.

This writer is personally familiar with this scenario in the Faridabad-Ballabhgarh belt.

The Haryana police was blooded long ago in anti-worker violence. That culture has been transported into 21st century Gurgaon. The only difference is the currently fashionable neo-liberal belief that unions are "artificial" -- they "distort" the market and must be crushed.

This belief is incompatible with constitutional values. Unions are a natural, spontaneous response to capital, embodying the rights of association and collective bargaining. They are absolutely irreplaceable in Indian conditions, marked by unlimited labour supply, crisis in agriculture, forced urban migration, and high unemployment.

Today, employment is annually growing at 1.2 percent, or half the rate of growth of the workforce. In this situation, individual workers have no bargaining power to negotiate a living wage.

Today, a strong anti-labour sentiment runs among the elite. This is reflected in recent judicial pronouncements -- like the SAIL judgment upholding contract labour -- which weaken the rights to unionise and strike.

This climate has encouraged employers to launch a powerful offensive through legal and illegal lockouts.

Over the past 15 years, the number of person-days lost in lockouts has greatly exceeded the number lost in strikes. According to the latest Economic Survey, the number of strikes has decreased from 540 in 1999 to 252 in 2004, while person-days lost in lockouts have exceeded those lost in strikes by 60 to 800 percent.

In this vitiated climate, many foreign companies do what they wouldn't dare do at home -- for instance, refuse collective bargaining.

The constitution of Japan -- which has the most investment in Gurgaon -- guarantees the right to work and says, "wages, hours, and other working conditions shall be fixed by law" and "the right of workers to organise and bargain and act collectively is guaranteed."

Recently, Toyota established a factory in Canada, where unions flourish, in preference to the US, where they don't. South Korea is known for serious industrial unrest. Labour militancy there resembles the vigorous unionism of early 20th century Europe. The same companies demand a submissive workforce in Gurgaon.

Such double standards and violations of constitutional rights must not be tolerated. India shouldn't become a Banana Republic, which guarantees foreign capital unlimited freedom to exploit Indians.

The time has come to build massive resistance. This demands initiatives not just by workers, but all those who believe in the dignity of labour and industrial democracy.

The Honda dispute is India's first labour landmark of the 21st century. It should trigger new thinking, including a charter to reform labour relations. We must replace weak labour laws with strong ones, and create job security with humane-level wages. We must reform labour laws, upgrade minimum wages, and punish union-smashing.

The dispute conciliation machinery in most states simply doesn't work. Nor do industrial courts. We need an effective grievance-redressal system. A new labour charter is the only means through which producers of wealth can get a stake in growth.

Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian columnist.