It is necessary to remember the past to understand what we are experiencing today. many comments for this article (except few) mention the good and properous life in post 1990s and the need to change. But who paid for this prosperity - Have we ever thought about the people who built this malls and skyscrappers and made cities what they are today. Is it possible for the people who built it enter these places? They are not allowed to enter. It is Datta Samant who kept the intersts of the workers importnat and it is for which he paid his life. Did we ever ask the question why he was killed? Who did not want to him to be alive? and why? Are those 250,000 workers are fools to follow him? Why the management could not give workers what they wanted. What ever they demanded were just meagre but even that could not be given. It is not the matter of capability of the industry but it is a principle that workers demand should not be fulfilled by the management. Today the government has come out with many anti-worker policies including the 2005 Act on Special Economic Zones (SEZ) which is invited by the industry as need of the hour. It provides almost free entry and exit and rarest of the rare possibilites for implementing and monitoring labour laws, huge tax sops and many more 'social bribes' for the corporates to establish their business in SEZs. Today thounds of workers in textile and garment industry in india are working in a precarious and insecured conditions. They don't know when they will go home from the factory. They are working for more than 12hrs a day. They don't get bonus, pension and even their due for working overtime. No leave benefits, no medical benefits and further women are being sexually exploited in these factories. Have the people talking about the economy ever cared about the society. We need a leader like Datta Samant to care for the people who build this "booming, vibrant, growing, shining india".
Re: Time to be militant
by vivek on Jan 06, 2013 09:02 PM Permalink
but is it nt true that people working in sez r also woring there to earn bread and butter .... if in case it is so bad why ppl r running ther to secure a job ther and if your answer is they dont have any other option then well in that case should we nt thaks siz to at least reduce some part of the unemployed youth group .... as some thing is always best then nothing ........
This country's politicians have thouroughly damaged the poor by consistently misleading them for personal gains The economy has to move on. It is surprisingg that even today people can't see the worldwide economic changes and major impact on India. Lakhs of descendents of the "victims of Textile Strike" have retrained and found employment in sunrise industries booming in India. Retraining is inevitable around the world. Just look at the robust emploment figures in USA where people were heavily protesting against jobs going to India. The politicians and labour-leaders should have helped those left out to come to reality instead of holding up economic changes. Today's booming Indian economy is despite the politicians, not because of them. The world money is coming here to gain on the burgeoning middle-class and its fast growingg purchasing power, which incedentally is comming from the same new economy. The politicians must bring policies that will attract world money to come here and keep it here for long enough to help increase employment in all stratas of societies. They should also free up enough resources such as vacant lands, urban land ceiling acts, marshes etc that the prices do not get distorted as at present. They should also open up hinterlands around large metros by rapiid development of infrastructure so that pressure and demand on urban land reduces, thus bringging their prices down.
The local people in mumbai are royally thrown out by this plan in disguise from the builder lobby mostly owned by Gujuratis , these builders know that today money is power so just put pressure by these tactics which earns them money and also long term goals like having mumbai covered by atleast 60 % gujurati people, who can afford high property rates...dont comment on my message before you investigate..Local people the marathi people are fools and helpless ...they have no option but to throw themselves out !!
The issues here is that the strikes should have been for upgrades and union leaders should be the ones to talk to management on upgrades even if it cost no improvement in salaries for a while. Anyway reading all of this though not authentically mentioned, is a pain and with already so many questioning GOD, there are so many more added to the list of so called Nastiks...
This strike was the biggest change that took place in my life. My father was a owner of a poultry farm with 20,000 birds and we were direct suppliers to the business in Central Mumbai and Girgaum. the strike crippled the demand so much that we had to shut the poultry farm and divesify into newer business. It also incurred a big financial loss. There were so many of us who were the suppliers and dependent industry propriters who also suffered for absulute no fault of them. Thank god that nightmare is over and strikes and lockouts post liberalisation is thankfullly out of fashion.May this sound wisdom also extend to "Bharat Bands" and general strikes also.
Datta Samant caused the downfall of Mumbai industry and that of the workers. I think the labour laws in this country were so stronlgy in the faour of the workmen that someday this was bound to happen.
We as a family did suffer a lot due to the strike. But our suffering was much less than a few, who had to sell their houses in the CHAWLS and stay in the Balcony, outside their rooms and were driven to extreme poverty.
The bottom line was, it was globalization. The Textiles mills were never going to earn profit, so thought the owners of the mills and wanted to move out it, since cheap cloth was produced in other parts of India/ World but this was only one part. The business model of the yester India was to make a BIG PROFIT, it never had the logic of sustained growth because u see still VIMAL and BOMBAY DYEING and etc are running on.
No one can blame the workers and neither the management because both thought they had the situation under control.
Ultimately it was the unfortunate wifes and children of these workers/ management staff who suffered. Even the Management lost all the jobs, u cant have managment if you dont have workers !!!
So any one who thinks he is SHANA and wants to blame any one, first he has to study the reasons for the strike and why did it go so long even though after the while the workers wanted to get back to work ?
The world of economics is very unforgiving. My suggestions to all the childrens of "Girni-Kamgaar", who are reading this... get higher education get good jobs/ start ur business earn good money and forget the past.
Try and Enjoy life, there is more to life than looking back at those bad days. I think i lost my teen age because of that but thats life.
I love life. I love Mumbai/India for what ever it has to offer.
