Plight Of Daily Wage Workers During The Pandemic Lockdown
“It is the sweat of the laborer that make their squire look smart.”
Who are daily wage workers or earners?
Wage labor, usually referred to as paid work, paid employment, or paid labor, refers to the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer in which the worker sells their labor power under a formal or informal employment contract. These transactions usually occur in a labor market where wages or salaries are market-determined.
What is the impact of Corona virus on the daily wage society?
The Corona virus pandemic has a serious impact on the living conditions of the people who belong to the daily wage society. The impact of the pandemic on the death of retail markets and other businesses is clearly visible in their banking transactions, but in the case of daily betting it is invisible because they spend what they earn and may not have an excess in their profits. Since the daily bets are in different categories, it is very difficult to find various problems with limited impact.
During the initial days of lockdown…
On March 24, the Indian government ordered a complete national lockdown. The lockdown was announced without any prior notice. India was fast to close down all its national, state borders and prescribed a succession of quarantine measures which was to be followed rigorously everywhere in India. A dozen of workers, particularly migrants and daily wage workers were left unemployed as the lockdown was declared by the government. Not all workers had sufficient savings for food and other essential things. It only lasted for a very short period of time. Millions of daily wage and migrant workers got trapped in the misery of poverty. A large consultancy conducted 18,000 household surveys in 10 states where on an average, 60% of the households lost jobs in the month of April and 20% of the people ran out of all their incomes and provisions. Only 6% of the people received some form of private funding from relations and NGO’S. The lives of migrant workers got miserable every day. They did not have ration cards and proper income to access food aid and other essentials for survival. All of these triggered the migrant workers to go back to their villages on foot, due to the absence of transportation services, travelling hundreds of kilometers which caused severe health issues and even deaths in certain cases.
Daily wages during or post lockdown during the pandemic
Since the time of Covid and the lockdown, there has been a severe crisis of employment opportunities in local labor markets. Getting work for even two days in a week was excruciatingly difficult for them. Daily wages too, for any work possible, had dipped by half. Data showed that mean monthly income for labor work fell by 62%, from Rs 9,500 per month in pre-pandemic times to Rs 3,500 per month now.
Usually, wage determination in a given labor market is dependent on numerous factors: nature of work, identity, the average experience of the worker in a vocation, home state of the worker and more. The workers who have worked in the city for a longer duration, begin their wage negotiations at a higher wage. All payment structures are not time-based (as per the countable days of work) — some workers get (or got) paid for the day regardless of the amount of work done, whereas for others, their wages are directly proportional to the effort and work performed. Despite so many factors influencing the wage rate, there is limited variation in the daily wage within the same category of work.
Availability of food or daily needs
Many migrant workers also died due to starvation, suicides, police brutality, exhaustion, road and rail accidents, and denial of timely medical care. There are about 139 million daily laborer in the country approximately, according to the World Economic Forum.
None of the migrant workers had access to ration cards which provoked many of the migrant workers to go back to their hometowns. These migrant workers were completely dependent on their employers and contractors for food supplies.
According to the contractors
“Government has given permission to continue work at big sites, but in the city, there are many small works undertaken like : construction of gardens in housing societies or constructing a compound wall and for such small work how should we arrange accommodation for the workers. There should have been some relaxation for daily wage workers so it could have benefited all”
The formation of crowds
During the initial stages of lockdown, the transportation systems were reduced, due to which many migrant works were not allowed to go home. This in turn resulted in crowds getting formed in bus or train stations, in hope that they will be able to go home. But due to this formation of crowds there was rise in the positive cases and spread of COVID-19.
The number of passengers at the bus stand, saw huge gatherings of migrant workers in 2020. The pandemic was just one of the factors burdening their mind. Many of them were heading home not because of the surge, but because of the wedding and harvest season too. This only worsened the situation at hand.
Effect of Covid on Finances
The nationwide lockdown to combat the novel coronavirus, which came into force on 25 March, had devastated the Indian economy across the board. Daily-wage earners, migrant laborer, farmers and workers in the unorganized sector, who account for almost eighty percent of India’s workforce, struggled to earn a living over the past months. This was an added stress over and above the widespread financial insecurity.
Putting a light on the severity of financial crisis due to the pandemic, a family of five in Western India was found dead in their home after committing suicide. A local police official said the family was facing “financial crisis and had incurred large sums of debt, which was made worse due to COVID-19.”
Situations in Hospitals
About 50–60 million Indians fall into the category of poverty due to their inability to finance health issues as India has some of the highest out-of-pocket healthcare expenditures. The COVID-19 is disproportionally affecting the poor, minorities and a broad range of vulnerable populations, due to its inequitable spread in areas of dense population and limited mitigation capacity due to high prevalence of chronic conditions or poor access to high quality public health and medical care. Moreover, the collateral effects of the pandemic due to the global economic downturn, social isolation and movement restriction measures, are unequally affecting those in the lowest power strata of societies.
The workers who came from a poor background were afraid of the heavy expenses imposed upon them by the hospitals for the treatment of COVID-19, hence they preferred not to visit the hospital for medical assistance but die in vain.
In some cases, the rich people were given priority over the workers despite the condition of workers being far worse than the rich as the administration of the hospital knew that the workers would be unable to pay their charges. It was also observed that the rich people had influence in the hospital which resulted in the workers being ignored despite of their causality.
“A DAY IS NOT WORTH WORKING, WITHOUT SWEATING. FOR THEIR HUNGERS LIE IN” - Ansow
Our country is a labor-oriented and labor-intensive society. It is the prime duty of the government to protect the living conditions and economy of the basic laborers. Our government should have made proper arrangement for shifting migrant laborer even before the lockdown was implemented. The security and well-being of the laborer is of utmost importance in the growth of our economy. The employers on their behalf should offer job security to migrant laborers and keep them economically comfortable.
Many non-profit organizations, seeing the helplessness of these people, have come forward to help them with food, clothes and daily necessities during this pandemic.
