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There are around 35,000 sanitation workers in Mumbai. Of these, some 28,000 are and 7,000 are hired on contract. Permanent sanitation workers have their basic working conditions protected by law. They are provided with uniforms, payment slips, medical insurance, and paid leave. Contract workers have none of these benefits. As migrants, they do not have ration cards or permanent housing either. Most of them live in unauthorised shanties that are frequently demolished, which forces them to periodically search for a new spot to build their homes again. It is not uncommon for the work of permanent employees to also be subdivided among contract workers. After years of persistent ground-level organising, the movement has come closer to the abolition of the system of subcontracting, which has made sanitation work one of the most dangerous, precarious, and dehumanising jobs in India today. (en) |
