INTRODUCTION ‘This report documents the working conditions and struggles of contract workers in Delh employed by the Airport Authority of India (AAI). It also brings to light the operation of th contract system ‘The AAI is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Govt. of India. | runs all the 120 civil airports in the country, and employs over 12,000 workers on contract. It Delhi, AAI runs three arrports - the Indira Gandhi (I.G.) International Airport and the airport: at Palam and Safdarjung. Besides, it has residential colonies, official complexes, and work site: related to aviation such as the cargo complex, ‘Outer Markers’, and the Air Traffic Contro Complex A significant proportion of the workforce at these airports, called ground staff, is mad up of contract workers. This term, ‘ground staff, camouflages the various kinds of work some people do on the ground to keep other people in the air. AAI employs contract labour in a large variety of jobs - these are spread across at least twenty-five categories of workers: Loaders Trolley Retrievers, Conveyer Belt operators, Safai karamcharis, Computer Operators, Car Park attendants, Pump Operators, Bird Chasers, Maintenance staff, Liftmen, Garbage workers Drivers, Supervisors, Fork drivers, Tractor Drivers, etc, Over 60 per cent of the workforce 1 these categories in Delhi, amounting to 3,500 workers, are on contract. ‘The precise numbers of contract workers under the different categories are very hard tc ascertain, For one, they are employed by several contractors, ranging from a handful to severa hundred workers under a single contractor. Two, more than one union has a presence among the airport workers in Delhi, but we found that these unions tended to have accurate informa: tion only of those categories in which they have a presence. And three, the workers are geo: graphically divided with their worksites being far from each other. These factors have a divi- sive influence on the workers and their struggles. The non-availability of precise numbers 1 inherent to the contract system, because contractors fraudulently make a part of their profits by fudging numbers. This absence of information also prevents workers from realising their collective strength. But to an outsider, mere numbers do not expose the conditions in which these workers labour, the work they do, or the regular indignities they face under the contract system. The significance of labour power in a production process or service cannot be grasped without look- ing into this reality, which is central to the lives of workers. This report is an attempt to help combat the increasing anonymity of labour and the working class in the present day. LIVES BEHIND LABOUR Of the 3,500 contract workers in Delhi under AAI, a major proportion - around 80 per cent - are accounted for by just four or five categories of workers: trolley retrievers, loaders, safai karamcharis, security guards and maintenance staff. The other twenty categories com- prise between 600-700 workers. ‘There are many systemic similarities in which these workers are exploited, but there are also crucial differences. These differences are specific to their work, or depends on who the contractor is, or the level of unionisation and collective struggle. The ground reality of workers usually reflects an interplay of these factors. The following section of this report looks at some of these issues within some job categories in which the contract system is dominant. 1 Airport Workers: The Ground RealityTrolley Retrievers In general, the privileged sections in this country have a blind spot regarding labour. In air travellers, this is obvious as soon as they reach an airport. The first thing most travellers look for at an airport are trolleys, which they find cither near the luggage conveyer belts, for those who arrive, or near the entry gates for those leaving. Travellers use these trolleys and then dump them near the check-in counters. Outside, they leave them just anywhere - at the car park, the taxi stand, departure area, or the restaurant - without a thought to how the trolley they left on the road had reached the luggage conveyer belt inside the airport in the first place. That job, of ensuring that trolleys are available at all places where and when they are needed, is done at Palam and I.G airports by 128 trolley retrievers. The work involves collecting the trolleys from the car park, the taxi stand, the porch, or wherever they have been left behind, and transporting them inside to the conveyer belt, and similarly from inside the airport to the porch outside. That is usually done by collecting about 50 trolleys at a time into a line and then pushing them to where they are needed. The intensity of work can vary. There are periods of intense activity. For instance, late night is a busy time at the international airport. The sudden arrival of 3-4 large capacity aircraft together, which is a daily and regular occurrence, means that around 2,000 trolleys would be needed at once. According to the workers, the number of flights each day has shot up of late, which has increased their workload enormously. There are currently about 95 arrivals and 95 departures each day at the domestic airport. While at the international airport, there are 43 flights coming in and an equal number flying out. Tivere are a number of unscheduled flights from the republics of the former Soviet Union. The increase in the number of trolley workers has hardly been at par with this recent expansion of civi tion. All the 128 trolley workers, and twelve supervisors who oversee their work, are under contract with a single contracting company, Translight Display International, TDI. The com- pany also hires the advertising space in both airports, which is another big source of income But more important for our purposes, it skims surplus off the workers in many way shall see. ‘A majority of the trolley retrievers have been working here for over five years without a single break. The workers do not get even a weekly off, their only paid holidays being 26 Janu- ary. 2 October, and 15 August. They are paid ls 74.50 per working day, the minimum wage rate applicable in Delhi. Then there are pay cuts if any leave is availed of in an emergency situation With no paid leave of any sort, cuts are inevitable. Besides, ESI 1s deducted from their wage at 1.75% and Provident Fund at 12%. The workers actually end up getting around Rs 1600 per month or less, and, of late, a yearly bonus at 8.33 per cent. Overtime work, which is not com- mon, 1s paid at a rate of only single OT, and not double the rate asis stipulated. Also, no worker possesses PF records although PF has been deducted from their wages regularly since August 1996. That the contractor has been contributing his share and depositing both parts with the PF authorities is highly unlikely. ‘This is the kind of remuneration for workers who have been working day-in, day out, for years, doing a physical job that neither allows for any feeling of participation in a creative work process, nor has the potential for the workers to either rise or move elsewhere. ‘The work shifts are from 6 am to 2 p.m.,2 to 10 p.m., and from 10 p.m, to 6 am. Many trolley workers come from villages and towns in Ha: 4, Some workers travel daily from as far as Pataudi and Sonepat One worker we spoke to starts from Pataudi at around 3.45 a.m. whenever he has a morning avia. ———— Airport Workers: The Ground Reality 2shift. and catches a tram to Dethi Cant, and boards a bus from Cantt. to Dhaula Kuan, and from there another bus to the domestic urport, Reaching the airport so early in the morning or ving after the night shift 1s no easy task given how irregular DTC buses are at those umes The airport as located ina remote place and there are no bus facilities provided by AAL for its contract workforce, In case they report late, they are asked to go back home and forfeit that “swages. Those who ask for a change of shift are harassed, and denied that particular shift ‘or instance, one worker who had just got married asked to be moved to day shift, He was harassed by being constantly kept on the mght shift for weeks on end. ‘These harassments should not be viewed as the arbitrariness of an individual manager. ‘They are endemic to the contract system, which subjugates and humihates the workers in order to exploit them in myriad ways. Therefore, those who struggle to become permanent do so not only because of the greater money or security involved but also to escape these indignities Not only is their work a drudgery, the work conditions are hostile, While inside the aur port, they are discouraged by AL managers or TDI representatives from talking to passengers Thereby, the management prevents them from earning tps by helping passengers with then luggage and trolleys. Despite AAT being their principal employer. facihties inside the airports aire completely demed to them; they have to avail of food at nearby dhabas. Heat. ram or cold thes have little protection. TD] claims Rs 1,600. dress allowance from the AAI for each worker every year, but only gives them two parrs of pants and shirts of inferior quality (which in out estimate costs only around Rts 800). They are not given any woollens in winter. Their work itseli takes them constantly in and out of the airport, from the warmth inside to the cold in winter and from the air-conditioned interior to the heat outside in summer. ‘The workers are allowed inside the airport only to take the trolleys in and out, and are demed any opportumity of rest inside daring the brief periods of lull. There is no place in the entire airport complex that the trolley workers can call their own, While talking to some trolley workers, we got to sit only wr the cur park at Paiam - there was httle shade anywhere, no benches, no toilets ‘The conditions sume years back were even worse than they are today. For instance, ifany worker would raise any issue, 4-3 days would be summarily cut from. his attendance as punish ment. In October 1996, the trolley workers of Delhi came together to form an independen union; their main agenda was the reguiarisation of their jobs. As in the case with some othe! airport workers, trolley workers have also filed a case m the High Court, in May 1997, to reg ter the fact of being employed with AAI. The only proof of employment they have as the entry card that enables them to enter the airport. The main purpose of their appeal is to ensure tha they are not dismissed by the AL or TDI. The High Court has ordered a stay against dismis but there are ways and means to get around the court order. In the meantime, this small collec tuve of workers carnies on its struggle for a working hfe with security and dignity Loaders One of the central commercial activities of AL is the transportation of goods, from whic a significant proportion of its profits derive. Air cargo accounts for 35 per cert of the value o India's exports. Nearly seven lakh tonnes of cargo was handled at various airports in 1997, anc Delhi has the share even more than Bombay. And whereas the transportation itself 1 done by air, the task of loading and unloading goods onto and from an aircraft 1s done by hun dreds of pairs of hands. Those who perform this job are called loaders Delhi has the largest number of luaders under the AAL A majority of these loaders 1,200 in all - work at the AAI's Cargo Terminal, which is adjacent to the 1G. internations 3 Airport Workers: The Ground Realityairport. A large number of these workers have been working there for ov most for years. There are two contractors for the 1,200 loaders, each employing 600 workers - Jac Air Services (for outgoing cargo) and Air Go Private Ltd. (for mcoming cargo). There are 100 super visors (to oversee the work of loaders) and also Class III computer ope allofwhom are on contract. There is strict security in the cargo section, maintained by security guards, also on contract. Interestingly, there are only 50-60 staff members of the AAL in such a large set-up Basically, the entire operation runs on contract labour. Loaders perform the job of handling cargo in the two sections, export and import Trucks loaded with goods come to the cargo terminal continuously, and goods are unloaded from then: on to trolleys. on which they are weighed. The goods are then transferred on to platforms, They are moved to another point in the terminal where large platesicontaiers are made out of alu minium sheets. The goods are then packed into these huge containers, which. having been sealed, are finally loaded on to the aireraft by machines This entire process, of carrying goods from pomt to point. is handled manualiy by thi loaders. They usually hft loads up to 60 kilogrammes. Weights above that are usually trans ported by trolleys, But there are no uniform procedures for this in practice. The absence of ad down procedures increases the scope for harassment by supervisors. ‘The regular handling of heavy loads manually has the ever-present danger of injuries though the injuries they suffer are usually minor mn nature. Oceas. inally, more serious mjurve occur such as fractured fingers and toes. Despite such a large worsforce engaged an intense physical labour, there are no medical facilites on the site, or an ESI hospital an the vieimty ‘The workload in the cargo section 1s inte the workload has increased: while in 1986. there used to be 18 fights a day, now there sre 40 flights a day cach way, besides unscheduled oF of loaders has not risen proportionately, This keeps workers on their tocs with only short breaks m work. Their woris shifts are for eight-hours. Unhke other airport wo.kers, these shifts are not fixed, Any eight hours constitutes a shift. For instance, one worker may be on a shift from 1 and another from 12 noon to 8 p.m... This odd fact fractures the workforce and their abihty to collect together in a large number, say at the gate, which has historically alw point for workers, A worker 1s pliced on a particular shift for three months over which he has The only way he can change his shift is by paying a bribe of Rs 500 to the contractor s r thirteen years, and tors flights from the republics of the former Soviet Union, The numb: been ar: Asis the case with trolley workers, some loaders come from far. One of the worke met commutes from Jhayhar (near Rohtak). He spends Rs 34 and five hours daily just to get to work and go back home. One loader from Pataudi starts off at 4m, Having walked a couple of kalometres to the railway station at Pataudh, he takes a train, followed by a bus, and then walks two more kilometres to reach the cargo complex. As a consequence, some workers do two con: secutive shifts and then go back home for 21 hours because that 1s the only way a loader can hope to manage on his meagre income while commuting from so far. But sometimes these wo shifts are not continuous. For instance, one shift ends at mght, and the second shiftin which he has to work begins the next morning, Which means having to spend the night outside the cargo: terminal. However, there 1s nothing outside but stretches of sand and grass. The other optto to take a room in a village nearby, paying a monthly rent of at least Rs 350, out of a salary of Rs 1,200 Loaders are pard at the rate of Rs 74.50 per working day, the minimum wage for un illed labour stipulated by the Delhi government. As stated above, a majority have worked ee Airport Workers: The Ground Re: 4 wethere for years, Which makes them unskilled no more, for any job, however physical, has skills unique to itself, acquired over a period. A few of them get the minimum semi-skilled rate, Ra 80.90. (The wage earned by the supervisors is not much better.) Despite the workers acquiring skills, their real wage has not gone up over the years. One worker told us they used to get Re 17.60 in 1986, but that got them more than the Rs 7-41.50 they earn today. However, since February 1998, the workers are being given work for only four days a week, or around sixteen days a month. Contractors make a chunk of their profits by claiming the full wages for the entire month from the AAI. In some cases, workers are not told in advance and come all the way to find they cannot work. In such a situation, workers get only half a day's wages while the contractor claims for the full day. The contractors forge entries in the attend: ance register to facilitate such manipulation with the active connivance of the AAI officials. This is a feature peculiar to loaders alone, in contrast to other work categories, where contractors understaff their workforce, make them work for 10-12 hours, but claim money for a greater number of workers than those actually working. In the loading section, workers get work for not all days in the month, and the contractor makes his money by showing a greater number of working days. This is besides the usual methods of claiming from the authorities a much higher rate than what they give to the worker Since they get only sixteen days’ work nowadays. the loaders’ actual wage works out to be around Rs 1,200. Then there are ESI and PF cuts. The contractors have not been furnishing PF slips since 1995, The loaders had waged a long struggle to secure PF benefits. But their victory has resulted in these deductions becoming part of the contractors’ profits There is another group of loaders, employed by private airlines, such as Kyrgistan Air- lines, Turkmenistan Airlines, Uzbekistan Airlines. The working conditions of the loaders of these airlines are so poor that they aspire for the status enjoyed by the AAI loaders. Loadere from Kyrgistan Airlines we met said they carn Rs 50 a day. Since their flights are unscheduled and only twelve loaders are employed, they are sometimes made to work for seventy-two hours without a break. The loaders we met had a dazed look on their faces, having ended a shift that began three days earlier! Given their situation, it is not surprising that for securing a contract loader's job with AA at the cargo complex. workers have to pay the contractor a bribe of Re 30,000, The false assurances and the real hopes of becoming permanent one day makes them pay such a high rate From the above, it is quite evident that loading is an activity that is regular, is central te the air transport industry and needs to be made permanent. In fact, Air India has permanent loaders, who earn in the range of Rs 15,000 a month. The airport authorities used to have a few permanent loaders many years ago, around 1986, When the contract loaders filed a case to be made permanent, AAI transferred its permanent loaders to other categories, thereby nullifying the contract workers’ claim of ‘equal pay for equal work’ Sweepers There was a total of around 1,000 sweepers in Delhi under the AAI until about two yeare ago, most of whom were on contract. As a result of a long and valiant struggle of contrac workers at the Bombay airports, the Supreme Court passed an order in late 1996 which laic down that all the sweeping and security staff on contract employed by AAI be made permanen without being removed from their johs (see box The Judgement and After) As a consequence of this order, 679 sweepers have been made permanent in Delhi. Bu following the order, as many as 178 were dismissed from their jobs on various grounds, such a SS 5 Airport Workers: The Ground Realitybeing medically unfit, over-age, or even that some of them had two spouses. These otherwise valid grounds were never an issue for years. They have been suddenly invoked to invalidate the gains of the workers from the Supreme Court order ‘There are still at least fifty sweepers who haven't been made permanent, even two years after the order. A majority of these work mainly in the AAI headquarters at Ranv Gandht Bhavan, and at the Air Traffic Services (ATS) complex near the international airport. Those still on contract get the usual rate of Rs 74.50 per working day. The nature of their work has no scope for overtime. Unlike permanent workers who have a salary of Rs 6,000 a month, the wages of the contract workers depends on the number of days worked. ‘The case of the sweepers at ATS is an important instance of how an order by the Supreme Court is not a resolution of a conflict, but the start of another struggle. There are fifteen sweep ers.at ATS complex. Of these, five have been working there for years, before the order. They get Rs 74.50. There is not even a hint that these workers will be made permanent in the foreseeable future. Besides these five, fifteen sweepers were hired after the order, when the need arose This process of hiring was completely ad hoc; far from permanent job vacancies being adver tised as should have been the case following the order, not even a contract tender was floated The newly-hired sweepers get only Rs 50 a day. Five of them were fired recently, on 20 January 1999, ‘There is a supervisor who oversees the sweepers’ work. He too is paid Rs 74.50 a day. and is employed through the same contractor, one D.K. Sharma. There are also, incidentally, eight gardeners, who work on the salary of Rs 1,250 a month. Because of this low salary, one of them. a young gardener, works as a loader at the international airport during the nights. and then works as a gardener during the day It was heartening to sce the rare solidarity that existed between the contract workers in different categories at ATS. And they all have the hope of a collective struggle in order to become permanent one day. But for the moment, notwithstanding their work conditions and their wage levels, they have a pride in what they do, which was obvious in the sparkling build- ing complex with its lush, green gardens. Security Guards It could be said that the AAI is made up of magnificent airports, buildings, machinery and assets, on the one hand, and its workforce on the other. Security guards protect the former and partially control the latter. The inherent nature of the work of security guards anywhere prevents them from thinking and acting in solidarity with other workers fortheir rights. Per- haps that is the reason why the security guards on contract under the AALin Delhi have never been organised. An added reason is that 90 per cont of them are ex-armymen. Years of service in the army tends to stop them from questioning authority. And the anxiety of securing their monthly government pension makes them hesitant from participating in trade union struggles. There are around 600 guards employed by the AAI in Delhi. According to some security guards we spoke to, 460 of these are on contract. The number of those on contract was difficult to arrive at with any certainty; we got very different figures from another source. This problem. of precise numbers is particularly acute in the case of security guards as they are not umonised and what is more, the workforce is spread over many places. Over those places, though. salaries and terms of work vary sharply. As we mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, to some degree this depends on who the concerned contractor 1s and his capacity to exploit labour. The security guards at the Air Traffic Services Complex get —————— Airport Workers: The Ground Reality 6{ts 1.250 per month for an eight-hour general shift from 9 am to 5 p.m.. However, the guards at the cargo complex get a daily wage of Rs 90.80 for a twelve hour shift. Interestingly, the ATS complex and the cargo complex are only yards away from each other. Then, there are 24 guards ut both airports whose specific purpose is to guard trolleys! TDI pays them Rs 74.50 a day. The 54 quards at the International Airport Division office of AAI, employed through the company Swift, get a salary between Rs 1,800 and Rs 2,200. In sharp contrast. permanent security guards: with AAL are in the pay scale of Rs 2.550, which works out to roughly Rs 6,000 a month for a caght-hour shift, Plus, of course, the many benefits which a permanent employee 1s entitled to. What 1s significant is that AAL stopped employing permanent guards way back in 1989; sin then they have only hired contract labour. Guards employed by Swift had uniforms provided to them by the company. Guards at the cargo complex wear blue uniforms that they are actually supposed to be provided, but they told us that they are made to pay for it themselves. All the security guards at the cargo terminal are same single contractor. He seems to have floated a Nigam supposedly to promote the welfare of ex-servicemen: this Nigam, the Bhootpoorva Uttar Pradesh Saiik Kalyan Nigam Limited, basically acts as a contracting ageney. Security guards at none of these places cet exther a paid weekly off or any other holiday in the year. y contemptuous the AAL is of labour law: ‘sues 1s revealed by its utter disregard nt Supreme Court order referred to hier. According to this order of December sll the sweepers and security guards employed by AAI on contract all over India ought t be made permanent, Not a single security guard has been made permanent in Delhi mployed through the Maintenance Staff ‘The maintenance staff operate and look after the machine infrastructural services of the Airport Authority of India. These include electrical and civi staff such as wiremen, pump and diesel generator set operators, airconditioning staff. fire fighters. ete. [hen there are helpers who asst ¢ kinds of work. ‘Phere ts a totat of around 1,100 maintenance workers. At least 430 of these are on con tract. The nature ot their work ts such that. unlike loaders or trolley workers, they are spreac out in the various, fur-flung establishments and work sites of AAL One of the inter: ny Workplaces of the maintenance staff is the Outer Marker, Ther: are two Outer Markers, near IIT Gate and at Biywasan respectively. These are linear exten sions of the runway at the LLG. airport. Signals are sent from here to the aircraft as they fl overhead. This crucial function of signalling needs to be in operation all the time. Hence, ther a diesel gencrator set to ensure continuous supply of power ‘The generator set at the Outer Marker near IIT gate is maintained by three operator and one helper, all of whom work on contract. On paper, there 1s an actual requirement of st maintenance workers here. The contractor, Vishal Enterprises, has employed only four work ers, and pockets the wages of two. Overall, Vishal Enterprises ‘supphes over 50 workers to AA ‘The workers who look after such an important activity are all on contract . The onl permanent staff here are two security guards. The three operators and the one helper here ar all paid Rs 1,400 a month, and have to work eight hours a day, 30 days a month without eve the weekly break. They don't have any PF or ESI facihties Asin the case of trolley workers, some maintenance workers had filed a case in the Hig Court against being on contract. Considered to be trouble-makers, they were all shifted by tk contractor to Bijwasan so that they would not ‘provoke other workers. Now, contractors tend equipment, buildings, a 7 Airport Workers: The Ground Realitemploy workers for only three months at a time, and they are then dismissed from work to pre- empt any possibility of resistance. This rapid, fi. turnover scems specific to maintenance contract workers. The staff at IIT Outer Marker are all new, and their jobs are unlikely to last for long. We also met maintenance workers at the International Airport Division office of AAI There are about 25 workers doing civil maintenance and 24 workers doing electrical work, The electricians and the wiremen, who ought to be class III employces, get around Rs 1,800 a month. The helpers get Rs 1,200. Overall, a majority of the skilled maintenance workers on contract get anywhere be- tween Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,400. Those who are organised get around Rs 1,950, a direct consequence of their collective efforts. The permanent workers in these categories, who are Class II] employ- ces of AAI, are paid around Rs 8,000 a month. The salary of helpers on contract, who are at the lowest rung in the ladder, is around Rs 800 for those who work around eight hours a day, and 1,200 for those who have to put in twelve hours daily. There are no permanent helpers through- out AAI ‘tas evident from the above that there are certain commen features of conti AAL in Delhi. These are: All activities in which the contract system operates are of a perenmal and permanent nature. Not only are all these tasks essential to the functiomng of AAL, also workers have been employed for years together. 2. In general, the majority of workers get paid anywhere between Rs 1,250 and 1.600 a month, which is less than the stipulated monthly minimum wage for unskilled labour of Rs 1,937 fixed by the Delhi government. Workers get paid the lower end of that range and sometimes even much lower, depending on whether the workers are orgamsed or not. For instance, some helpers (electrical), who are not organised, get Re 800-1000, and around Rs 1,200 if they worked for twelve hours a day. 3. Most workers do not get their basic entitlements such as annual leave, paid weekly off, or even overtime in case of extra hours of work. When they do get overtime, they get single overtime, and not double OT as is stipulated. They do not have a regular shift, and their shift 1s determined on the whims of the contractor and the AAI officials. There are abso- lutely no canteens, rest-rooms, etc. for most workers, as mandated in the Contract La- bour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970. 4. Working conditions vary across categories or even within a single category, depending on who the contractor is, and the extent to which workers are organised, For example, load- ers in the cargo face less harassment than trolley retrievers at the airport 5. The number of workers in a single category at a particular site influences the level to which they can effectively organise themselves, For instance, security guards at the cargo terminal, are better placed than their counterparts at ATS or the International Division Office. 6. In some categories, such as trolley retrievers and sweepers, the wage and working condi tions of supervisors, who are also employed by contractors, are only slightly better than the workers. 7. The difference in wages between contract workers and perma labour in the nent workers doing exactly TT ee Airport Workers: The Ground Reality 8THE ACT AND ITS VIOLATIONS Under Section 3 of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, a Contract Labour Advisory Board is set up to advise the governments in matters arising out of the administration of the Act. The next meeting of the Board is scheduled for March 4-5, 1999. At these meetings, the Board considers the abolition of contract labour in any establishment or industry. Section 10 of the act states that, following advice from the Board, the appropriate government (central or state) can prohibit the employment of contract labour in any establishment after inquiring into factors such as whether: a. the work is incidental or necessary to the establishment's business; b. itis of perennial nature, of sufficient duration; ©. it is done ordinarily through regular workmen in that establishment, or any other similar establishment; and d. there is sufficient work to employ a considerable number of whole-time work- men. It is obvious that contract labour under AAI should be entirely abolished under each and every of these grounds. Despite such clear grounds, and numerous meet- ings of the Board, contract labour continues to thrive in AAI Every principal employer (in this case the AAI) that employs contract labour needs to register itself to that effect with the government under section 7 of the Act The AAI is not registered as such an employer despite employing thousands of con- tract workers. In turn, no contractor can undertake or execute any work through con- tract labour without obtaining a license from the government under section 12 of the Act. As per the rules under the Act stipulated by the government in 1971, that license is to be renewed each year. Forget renewal, contractors under AA rarely, if at all, obtain this license in the first place. This is facilitated by the fact that a number of them are former officials of AAI There is an entire part in the Act that is optimistically called ‘Welfare and Health of Contract Labour’. The sections under this part demand that the contractor provide rest rooms, drinking water, washing facilities, and toilets. Rule 41 states that the con- tractor is to provide canteens in case the contract workforce exceeds a hundred. We found that few of these facilities, or none at all, are provided at the various sites of work the same work is huge: contract workers get less than one-third of their permanent coun- terparts, and almost none of the benefits. A significant number of the workers come from the nearby villages and surrounding districts of Haryana. In many cases, this involves travelling long distances of anywhere up to 100 to 200 kms both ways. They do this because, with their extremely low wages. they still find it cheaper to travel up and down, having bought a train pass than taking up a room and staying nearer the airport. The migrant workers from other states like U.P. take up rooms on rent in villages near the airport and spend anywhere between one- fourth to one-third of their income on rent xe 9 Airport Workers: The Ground RealityCONTRACT RAJ There cannot be any doubt that the system of contract labour is well-entrenched in most of the activities of the Airport Authority of India. This chapter depicts how the contract system operates and its hold over the workforce. Public sector industries have a long history of employing workers on contract. The sys- tem has intensified and thrived as a very profitable line of enterprise particularly in the era of liberalisation. Current! a large number of enterprises, in both the public and private sectors, are either contracting out parts of their activities, known as job contract, or employing thei. workforce solely through contractors, known as labour contract. ‘AAI predominantly employs contract labour through a system of labour contract. Earlier, the AAI used to employ workers both on a permanent basis and under contra Since 1989, workers, particularly in the Class IV category, have been employed only on con- ct tract. Each year, AAI puts out tenders to select contractors who are then responsible for provid- ing labour. These contractors range from those who handle just a handful of workers to those who handle several hundreds. The latter are not individual contractors but whole companies, who may even have other business activities, such as TDI. Many of the individual contractors are former officials of AAI, and they have influence within the organisation. This influence helps them both in getting the contract and in defrauding the management These contractors make their profits in two kinds of ways: one, by squeezing workers. and two, by frauding the management. @ The general practice 1s to claim from the authorities a much higher wage rate than what they pass on to the workers by way of daily wage. and pocket the difference. For instance, Jac Air Services and Air Go get a much higher rate for each loader they employ, and given that there are 1,200 loaders at the cargo terminal under these two contractors, their surplus runs into millions of rupees a year. @ In additior to the above, some contractors actually employ fewer workers than is stipu- lated in their contract with AAI, while claiming money for the larger number. They then fet the fewer workers to work for 10-12 hours each day to make up for that gap, without paying the stipulated overtime. This practice happens to be common among contractors who employ maintenance staff. @ In some cases, the workers are given work and wages for fewer days in the month, and a fraudulent attendance register which claims that they worked for the entire month is submitted to the management by the contractor. He then claims the full month's wage and pockets the difference. @ In general, the provident fund scheme is rarely applicable to contract labour. Some con. tractors were compelled to introduce the PF scheme wherever workers fought for it. Irom- cally, this scheme has worked to the disadvantage of contract workers, with contractors making deductions for PF from their salaries and not transferring the sum to the PF authorities. Contract workers are not in a strong position to claim the accumulated PF, in the absence of accurate records pertaining to their duration of service. In the case of trolley workers the deduction in their wages is about Rs 230 per month. By additionally evading their own equal contribution to the PF, the contractor makes Rs 460 per worker, which works out to Rs 65,000 a month. © Finally, there are stipulations in their contract with AAI which are not met by the con- Airport Workers: The Ground Reality 10tractor For instance, contractors claim an annual uniform or dress allowance from AAL ‘They either do not provide it at all, as as the case with security guards at the cargo terminal. or give workers clothes that are much cheaper than the sum allotted, as with trolley workers. TDI makes over Rs 1 lakh every year merely from such a small item as uniform” Itis clear from the above that a contractor's official profits are only an insignificant part of the overall profits that he extracts. To make these illegal profits possible, a part of the loot is faven as bribe to officrals of AAD at various levels. These pay-offs are very regular and organ- ised. According to those we spoke to, for contracts up to Rs 10 lakh, a bribe of 10 per cent of the sum is distributed among offiaals within AAL at unwritten but already specified ratios, The percentage paid goes up in proportion with the value of the contract Going by rough estimates. a permanent employee in any category in which the contract sin operation earns at least Rs 5,000 a month more than a contract worker. Ifone takes into consideration tts 12,000-strong contract workforce in India, the annual gains that accrue to AAT on account of their exploitation is Rs 72 crore, It amounts toa ttle less than one-fourth of the ATs total profit of Rs 316 crore in 1997-98. system WORKERS’ STRUGGLES AND UNIONS Recently, for days on end, newspapers and the media were full of the ‘strike’ by At Traffic Controllers. The strike was broken by invoking the undemocratic Essential Services Maintenance Act, dismissing key staff, and calling m the Air Force as replacement, Essentially. these tactics restrict the space for labour to democratically struggle for its demands Given such an ant-labour miheu ev organising under the contract system, the small struggles waged by contract workers in are both sigmificant and offer a hope for the future. They may not affect ‘essential servi air travel in as much as they become a daily newspaper item, but therr implications for the continued exploitation of workers are enormous A significant achievement of the airport contract workers has been to successfully pre- vent attempts at introducing Job contract. Workers feel that if the work 1s done through job contract, in which tasks or services are farmed out to private enterprises, their conditions would worsen. Also, now they feel they can hold AAI responsible as their principal employer. The fact that job contract does not have a single, easily idenufied principal employer, goes against the workers. Moreover, under Job contract, workers are arbitrarily shunted from one job site to another, so that it becomes extremely difficult for workers to orgamse themselves. ‘There have been at least two attempts by the AAI management to introduce this kind of job contract or ‘internal privatisation’, once in 1992, and more recently, in 1996. In February 1996, the safat work at the international airport was given on a job contract to Sulabh Interna tional, the high-profile NGO. Over 200 sweepers, with the support of the CITU-affihated Air- port Employees Union, stopped work and sat on dharna at the airport for eight months, Work ers argued that Sulabh should stick to the line of activity 1t knows best: making toilets. As a result of this long struggle. Sulabh had to retreat, However, as many as 50 workers were dis: missed. Their case 1s still going on an the High Court. One hundred and sixty workers were taken back to work. In 1989, loaders in the cargo section stopped work in protest for four days when 23 of their fellow-workers were thrown out of work, One of the practices of AL 1s to break struggles nin the pubhc sector and the inherent problems of Al ———————— "1 Airport Workers: The Ground Realityby hiring new workers in situations of conflict. In December 1997, over 1,000 loaders went on total strike for 33 days, under the CITU banner, Their main demand was the regularisation of jobs, Immediately, 500 new loaders were recruited. .\ hundred of these are still part of the present workforce. The concrete gains of this struggle were the introduction of PF and ESI among the loaders and the distribution of uniforms, Loaders in the cargo section owe allegiance to the Airports Employees Union, There are many other unions m AAL, of which two others are significant - Suraj, which 1s affihated to INTUC, and the Airport Authority Kamgar Union. There is an official union, which represents only the permanent workers of AL all over India, and with which the management negotiates, Known as the Airport Authority Emplovees Union, its elections are held once every five years. In the last elections, held in September 1997, FCITU, Prior to 1997, Kamgar held this position of being the official umion for five years, It needs to be under- lined that the official union, which is the only one the management recognises, represents only permanent workers ‘There 18 no space for the representation of contract workers within this arrangement despite contract labour comprising such a large section of the AAL workforce. In fact, this ar- rangement has been reinforced by the official unions - Suraj in particular - who have not att- tempted to bridge the gap between contract and permanent workers In Delhi, wherever we met the contract workers, they had only extremely critical things to say about the INTUC-affiliated Sura. Suraj has a presence only among the permanent workforce of AAI, and tends to completely disregard issues of contract workers. It is seen by the contract workers as a tool of the management to derail their strugel ‘The union that has the longest and most sigmificant presence among contract workers 18 CITU, [ts activity and following among loaders in the cargo section goes back to 1986. Its other main support base 1s among sweepers at the international airport. It does not have a presence, in Delhi, among the permanent workforce ‘The Airport Authority Kamgar Unions the only union that is active among both perma- nent and contract workers in Delhi. Its main base among contract workers 1s among the main. tenance staff, which includes electricians, pump operators, helpers, mech:nies, air condition- ing staff, etc. It has a larger presence in the domestic division of AL Besides, Kamgar has been active in the formation of a collective body - All India Airport Unions’ Coordination Com- mittee - to oppose the ongoing privatisation of the five international airports, and the corporatisation that is a part of it ‘The unions mentioned carher have their support base in one category of work or another We did not come across evidence of any organised attempts to move toward a combined struggle for common demands, trarscending work categories or umiting contract and permanent wor ers. Hence, the gains of struggle in a particular category have not had any considerable effect on the other categories. However, as an exception, some permanent workers continue to pro- vide support to the struggles of contract workers, Besides these struggles under the leadership of the trade umions, there have been small attempts by groups of workers to collectivise, A mention has been made in the earher section, of the trolley workers at both airports, who formed an association and filed a case for regula tion and against dismissal. The security guards at the cargo complex are also fighting a similar case together. There are other c this, These welcome attempts at collectivisation have so far been restricted to fighting cases in courts the INTUC union was elected the official union m Delhi with the support of ses li Airport Workers: The Ground Reality 12THE JUDGEMENT AND AFTER In December 1996, a landmark judgment of the Supreme Court directed the abolition of the contract labour system among sweepers and security staff in air- ports all over the country. The judgment was the result of a struggle waged over eight years by airport workers at Bombay through the Indian Airports’ Employees Union, and other organizations. Following this judgment, over 2,000 sweepers and security guards under the AAI were made permanent all over India. In Delhi, 679 sweepers were made permanent by the AAI. The judgment was based on a central government notification of 1976 that prohibited the employment of contract labour for sweeping, dusting, cleaning and security in any central government establishment. The Supreme Court judgment has wider implications for contract labour in the country. There exists a serious lapse in the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, which the judgment overcomes. Section 10 of the Act merely states that the government can prohibit contract labour in an establishment or in- dustry depending on the nature and certain existing conditions of work. The Act ought to have clarified that abolishing contract labour in an establishment means that those working under contract in that establishment will be made permanent automatically. This is perhaps implied, but not stated in the Act, and hence open to varying interpretation. In 1992, in an anti-labour interpretation of the Act, a bench of the Supreme Court in Denanath vs National Fertilizers and Others said that the abolition of contract labour in a factory does not mean permanency for the contract workers. It said that the workers would have to further fight the case in a labour court; it meant that the abolition of the contract labour system in an enterprise or industry amounts to the dismissal of the contract workers. The Supreme Court order of 1996 has over-ruled this earlier judgment. In any industrial dispute in which contract workers are fighting for permanency, they have the 1996 judgment as a precedent. The order was preceded by several years of bitter struggle against the AAI management and contractors by the workers in Bombay and elsewhere. The struggle also involved huge expenditures and long delays, which essentially makes the battle between labour and capital a fundamentally unequal one. Winning the case did not signal the end of a dispute, as it should have, but the beginning of a new struggle for the workers of AAI. Since then, they have been fighting for the imple- mentation of the order, not by going back to the courts, but through agitational and mobilisational forms. No security guard has been made permanent in Delhi and Bombay. A part of the workforce among sweepers continues to work on contract ———— 13 Airport Workers: The Ground RealityIN THE FACE OF PRIVATIZATION The struggle, for permanent status, waged by contract workers at the five international airports of Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and Bangalore and other airports in the country, gocs back a long way. The central government notification of 1976, and the Supreme Court order that followed twenty years later are merely two milestones in that struggle. Milestones: are never the end of the road. They only indicate how far one has to go. The current efforts are directed towards forcing the AAI to implement the Supreme Court order regarding security guards and sweepers and widening its application to other categories. In the meantime, the central Contract Labour Advisory Board is scheduled to hear the matter on 4 and 5 March 1999. Different unions from all over India will place their case before the Board. Not that they are unduly hopeful of another government institution, but want to explore all avenues in the course of their struggle In the midst of all this, on 20 January, the union cabinet approved the corporatisation and modernization of the above-mentioned five international airports as a move towards priva- tisation. Other airports are scheduled to be privatised in a phased manner. The government will automatically approve proposals with up to 74 per cent foreign equity participation, going up to 100 per cent in special cases. In the face of this, contract workers feel a greater threat of losing their jobs. Not that their wages or work conditions under AAI are any good: for years, they have worked for AAI virtually like daily wage earners with the constant fear of losing their jobs at any time. But with impending privatisation, they feel that the space for struggle will further shrink. And, the fall-out will be faced not only by contract labour, but also by the perma- nent workforce. Airport workers perceive that the AAI, as a government institution, cannot escape their grasp or the processes of law after a point. AAI, after all, is the only principal employer for the entire airport workforce in the country whereas privatization will result in a number of such employers, which will only fracture the workforce The December 1997 policy document on airport infrastructure and privatisation pre- pared by the Ministry of Civil Aviation confirms their fears. The Policy Document states that — Technological and other improvements will be made by the introduction of automation and computerisation, mechanization of baggage and ground handling services, and con- tracting out of operating and maintenance facilities’ (p. 16) — There will be ‘massive economy in expenditure by manpower optimization, cost reduction, increased productivity, contracting out of services, etc.’ (p. 20). — There will be greater accent on modern technology and mechanization, so as to reduce the need for manpower’ (p. 19). — ‘Airport management needs expertise in diverse fields and cannot survive except by sub- contracting of specialized activities to a host of private organizations’ (p. 29). It is striking how, in the present day, all these terms - ‘increased productivity’, ‘cost reduction’, ‘mechanization’, ‘technological improvement’ - and many more, all lead to an assault on the working class. Given the context of our report, what these moves will mean not only to the contract, but also to the permanent workforce of AAI is what is most important. Most serv- ices, barring Air Traffic Control, will be contracted out to private enterprises. The introduction of the private sector combined with mechanization will hit contract labour first and the hard- est. This process of throwing out ‘surplus’ contract workforce is particularly facilitated by the fact that they are not all organized. The next attack will be on the permanent workforce through Airport Workers: The Ground Reality 14mechanisms such as the Voluntary Retirement Scheme, which is anything but voluntary. The thrust of capital over the last ten ¥ been to keep permanent labour to a minimum. The contracting-out of services or production, specifically referred to in the docu- ment, is an essential part of this process in which principal employers shrug off their statutory and other responsibilities towards the workforce. In order to entice private capital. ‘legal hur- dles to the engagement of contract labour or contractual agencies will have to be dismantled through legislative intervention’ (Policy Document, p. 29). The blatant use of the words ‘legal hurdle’ in a ministry document for laws relating to labour is not an aberration. It is an indica- tion of how, in the future, the process of liberalization will mean a whittling down, or deletion, of those provisions in law that are meant to protect labour ‘The gains of permanent workers won by years of struggle are in fact basic rights that should extend to the entire working class. The relentless attacks on the rights of permanent workers and the growing caswalization of the workforce are two sides of the same coin.. Both state and capital are keen to introduce a ‘flexible labour market’. This means the abdication of all responsibilities towards workers. Therefore, the fight for the abolition of the contract labour system is part of the larger struggle against the capitalist order. Prepared and Published by Workers’ Solidarity, Delhi For copies: Nilanjana Veijendra Rajesh Gupta 676, 14th Cross C-51/101, Sector 9 C-10/5 Krishna Nagar 31st Main, J.P. Nagar Phase 1 Shanti Nagar Mira Rd (E) Dethi 110051 Bangalore 560078 Dist. Thane 401107 Suggested contribution: Rs 5 Printed at Vikas Offset, Shahdara, Delhi - 32AIRPORT WORKERS THE GROUND REALITY WORKERS’ SOLIDARITY Dethi, March 1999