Workers Rights are Human Rights
Why I Joined the Union — By Humpreet, AIITEU Bangalore
I currently work for a company that creates image content and does photography shoots around the world for different brands. I provide customer support to our clients and photographers. A normal day is mostly about gearing up for work, and having conversations with different clients and service providers.
In the beginning of my career I was never constantly working at one place. After I shifted out of my home in 2018, I might have worked at a few places, but the stint at each place would not have been more than three to four months.
In 2020, I worked in a BPO for 6 months and was laid off without any notice. Around the same time, I was following a person on social media through a zero-waste group in Bombay that I was part of. Around the same time, she started posting about workers’ rights and about unions and their work and that really inspired me. I joined AIITEU after a few months. Since then I have been part of online conversations/ meetings and physical union campaigns in Delhi and Bangalore.
Earlier, I didn’t know anything about workers’ rights. I had been involved in many social projects in animal rights or human rights.
One only saw workers’ struggles depicted in older bollywood films during their childhood or teen years. There’s nothing like being suddenly put on the chopping block as a worker, to make this front and center of one’s reality.
The BPO company I was fired from was a national company and was a professional setup, and even before being fired, I recognised the many difficulties we faced as workers. Interestingly, I was rehired at the same company a few months later. Work from home brought more challenges to already existing problems. Due to all of this, I was constantly trying to learn more about labour rights, working conditions, workers’ well being etc.
My primary motivation to join the union in the beginning was to have guidance in case I ever face issues at work. In fact it came in handy when I was joining the new workplace where I am currently employed. I had some difficulties getting my joining letter and the contract had some contentious clauses which I was able to resolve after speaking to some union members.
After becoming a union member I participated in campaigns and was part of on ground activities in Delhi and Bangalore through which I learnt about the recent changes in labour laws, which in my opinion, spell further doom for workers of all stripes.
Speaking to workers about these issues publicly has also given me a lot of confidence. At first I was able to recognise only issues I faced as an BPO employee. But now I am able to connect issues me or my colleagues face to those who might be in other sectors. For example, I recently spoke to a security guard at a building in my company’s office and was disturbed by the ordeal faced by him and his co-workers. He and the other security guards were struggling due to long hours and had no leaves, they were working 365 days a year. They were also facing unfair salary deductions if they took a leave.
Joining a union makes one more empathetic and unites us to fight for workers across industries and skill levels. I am glad I joined the union. Seeing the anti-worker policies and politics of our current government, I am determined to learn more, work on these issues and fight for better standards for workers’ rights and well-being.
I remember the BPO demands’ charter drafted by the union last year. When I first read it I felt it encompassed cogent demands to all the issues I have experienced in the ITeS sector. The working hours at my present job is 8 hours, so it’s not as bad as my previous workplace where I was working 10 odd hours. But one doesn’t know if it will change for the worse. I hear from many other people that they are still working 11–12 hours shifts. Target oriented work adds a whole other level of stress for workers.
According to new labour laws, employers can allow their employees to work 4 days a week instead of 5 days, without changing average hours in the work week. This means the work day will be extended to 12 hrs, potentially opening doors for further overworking and exploitation of all workers.
Many MNCs shift processes to India as labour costs are very cheap. Increasing wage theft and alienating working conditions has been a prime feature of the BPO sector. Freshers make nothing, and the growth in salary is not much. Not all companies provide benefits such as insurance, PF, transportation, etc and nobody pays overtime. Worker’s are denied sick or paid leaves at the whims of the management.
When I was campaigning on the BPO workers’ demand charter most employees we spoke to had a lot of complaints. Poor wages was the main issue followed by dismal working conditions. THIS HAS TO CHANGE.
The crisis brought on by Covid 19 and unemployment is only making things worse for workers in the BPO sector. When I was laid off in 2020, just before I was fired, the parent company had shut down its customer support process in our company and shifted to another company in Noida. In our company we worked ~52.5 hours/week for a monthly salary of Rs. 15,000 and the BPO workers where the process was shifted to, had a workweek of 54 hours with a monthly salary of just Rs. 9000!
Most of these BPOs are in metros and tier 1/2 cities. As the industry grows due to further digitalisation of services, salaries have remained stagnant or gone down whereas average working hours per week and cost of living have gone up. There are some companies that offer decent wages and work hours but they are the exception and are also very difficult to get into.
As a norm, most BPO employees don’t discuss their salaries even though there is no policy preventing them from doing so. Job postings on Linkedin or other 3rd party websites mostly don’t mention salaries, and even when it is mentioned, the salary one gets in hand does not match what one is offered!
In India, labour costs are less because our governments have allowed for it, showing their true allegiance only to their corporate benefactors that fund their election campaigns. Wages in European or American countries and even many Asian countries are at the higher end (even when adjusted with the cost of living indices) because the labour laws are good. Not all companies follow them, but the governments have ensured decent wages for at least for white collar workers like us.
In India, due the absence of awareness among IT & ITeS workers and lack of coordinated effort by them to shape labour policies, we see a situation where the hand of the ‘free-market’ keeps undermining and devaluing workers who are the true value creators.
