Despite the persistence of many-sided injustices and problems in unequal societies, democracy opens up several windows of opportunities which can be used by committed social activists, working with the help of respected mentors, to achieve significant rights for workers. This brings new hope to workers and the possibilities of replicating such efforts lead to more initiatives and greater hope. This in turn strengthens democracy and the various provisions of social justice in India’s constitution, making these more meaningful for workers and strengthening constitutional values at the grassroots. 

In India several such efforts to help workers (including porters, dock and port workers, coal and iron ore miners as well as other sections of workers) can be identified which are a source of hope and inspiration even though the success of such efforts can never be complete and some problems continue to persist while new ones also rise. One such effort which has the potential of benefiting very large numbers of workers is an effort to bring justice to construction workers which numerically constitute perhaps the second largest segment of workers after the farming and -related activities sector. 

These efforts started with the initiatives taken to set up an organization for taking forward the rights of construction workers in Delhi as well as at the national level around the year 1986. These efforts culminated in the setting up of a national organization called Nirmana (translated as Construction). One of the most important objectives of this organization was to make continuing efforts for justice based legislation for construction workers at the national level. As this was a far-reaching objective which could benefit millions of workers, it was important to involve several senior persons and unions in this campaign and this led to the creation of the National Campaign Committee for Construction Labor (NCC-CL). A trade union of construction workers Nirmana Mazdoor Panchayat Sangam (NMPS) was also formed. Some of the key activists involved with this effort subsequently also took up issues relating to other sections of unorganized sector workers including domestic workers. Efforts for justice-based comprehensive legislation for all unorganized sector workers as well as for domestic workers were also made. With the coming of the new Labour Codes it is a period of transition and these groups are carefully assessing and understanding the new situation and its implications. This is a good time to assess their struggles and achievements so far.

In India construction industry is the second largest economic activity, next to agriculture. An estimated 14.6 million persons were directly employed in construction work in 1995-96. Today nearly 56.5 million workers are registered with various Building and Other Construction Worker Boards (BOCW boards). Estimates of number of construction workers range from 50 million to 70 million. There are projections of high increase in the years to come. According to the National Labour Commission Report (2002), around 16% of the nation’s working population depends on the construction industry for their livelihood.

Before the creation of NCC-CL some localised efforts to assert construction workers’ rights had achieved reasonable success in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. In Tamil Nadu these efforts were led by the Tamil Manila Kattida Thozhilalar Sangam (TMKTS – The Tamil Nadu State Construction Workers’ Union). This was an independent trade union not affiliated to any political party or national trade union. It consisted of local, district and state-level units with elected representatives at each level. Its efforts played a notable role in the passing of the Tamil Nadu Manual Workers Act in 1982. In 1983 the Tamil Nadu government sought to introduce new legislation for construction workers which fell much below the expectation of the TMKTS and had some undesirable features as well. The TMKTS launched a state-wide campaign against this legislation.

The experiences gained at the state level encouraged the TMKTS leadership to make wider efforts at the national level for legislation which is suitable and adequate to meet the needs of construction workers. Earlier the First National Commission of Labour as well as the Labour Ministry’s Industrial Committee on Building and Construction Industry had emphasised the need for comprehensive legislation. In1981 M. Kalyansundaram and George Fernandes, two members of Parliament, introduced private member bills in the Parliament relating to welfare of construction workers. The former bill was withdrawn on an assurance by the government that it was contemplating a comprehensive legislation on this subject. In February 1985 the Labour Ministry constituted a Tripartite Working Group (TWG) for the Building and Construction Industry, consisting of representatives of the Government, builders’ associations and trade unions.

In November 1985, thanks to  initiative taken by the TMKTS (particularly its leading activist R. Geetha) and some other labour and legal activists – a national seminar on construction labour (with special emphasis on legal protection) was organised at Delhi. Some organisations which helped this effort included PRIA, CILAS and Legal Aid and Advice Centre. This seminar brought together about 250 construction workers, trade union activists, lawyers and jurists, voluntary organisations and government officials to consider various aspects of protective legislation for construction labour in detail for three days.

This seminar concluded that the existing legislations were both inappropriate and inadequate to meet the real needs of construction workers. The seminar therefore recommended that comprehensive draft legislation should be prepared keeping in view the real situation of the industry and the real needs of the workers. It was also agreed that a nationwide campaign should be launched to make this comprehensive legislation a reality and to mobilise construction workers on this issue. The realisation of the need for such a campaign led to the immediate formation of the National Campaign Committee for Central Legislation on Construction Labour (NCC-CL).

This committee was fortunate to have from the outset as its chairperson an outstanding public figure   associated with many reforms and campaign – Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, a retired Supreme Court judge. Its convener, a public-spirited lawyer named R. Venkatramani and co-ordinator, Subhash Bhatnagar, a leading trade unionist and social activist, were equally well chosen for their   important roles in this campaign. Others in the core group who played an important role for several years included Justice P.S. Potti former Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court, T.S. Sankaran, former Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Labour, and well-known trade union activists like D. Thankappan, N.P. Swamy and R. Geetha. In the next few years an increasingly important co-ordinating role was played by Nirmala Sundaram, who left a deep and lasting impression on the entire movement within a short period till her extremely tragic and sudden death (in 1996) at the young age of 40 years. In the legal struggles for justice eminent lawyers like R. Venkatramani and Colin Gonsalves made very important contributions. 

In the mid-80s Subhash Bhatnagar had started shifting from his IIM union activities in Bangalore to take up wider responsibilities relating to construction workers in Delhi. This being the capital city of India was considered a very important center for coordinating activities relating to the campaign for justice-based legislation for construction workers. Similarly Nirmala Sundaram shifted from South Rajasthan, where she was working for various weaker sections with Prayas voluntary organization, to Delhi to take up wider challenges relating to construction workers. Around this time Subhash and Nirmala were married and became the center of a very dedicated team that emerged to take forward the cause of construction workers. As Subhash recalls, several friends from his student days came forward to help in important ways. Sujata Madhok in particular was very consistent in her support over several decades. Other friends who were very helpful included a former corporation member Mehar Chand Yadav. 

The first efforts to mobilize construction were made in Saraswati Vihar and neighboring colonies of Delhi like Bannuwal Nagar, Haiderpur and Prashant Vihar. Several workers from here became long-term friends of Nirmana organization and contributed in important ways for several decades. Such friends include Ishwar Sharma and Umesh Singh. When crisis time came to these workers’ colonies in the form of demolitions and resettlement in distant places like Bawana, Nirmana extended a helping hand and the close linkages also continued in resettlement sites.

The first and foremost task before the NCC-CL was to prepare a draft comprehensive legislation that could ensure the welfare and social security of construction workers. In the drafting of this legislation construction workers were involved closely. Several workshops and seminars were organised for this purpose at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore. This effort benefited from the experiences of the earlier enactment of legislation for dock-workers and head-load workers.

In this drafting special care was taken to keep in view the production process which operates through a long chain of contractors and subcontractors creating a lot of instability. As the NCC-CL states in a summary,

“The NCC-CL bill asserts that construction workers can only be assured social security and labour welfare by substituting the existing instability by a Tripartite Construction Labour Board consisting of workers, employers and government representatives. It would provide a minimum guaranteed wage per month as well determine and provide appropriate conditions of service, thus alleviating the misery of workers, which stems from insecurity of employment and rampant exploitation. The board would collect a cess for its administrative expenses and a welfare levy from employers to fund social security and labour welfare schemes. It would also resolve relevant industrial disputes.”

NCC-CL also made concerted efforts to create a consensus on main features of legislation for construction labour among representatives of various national trade unions, particularly using the forum of TWG for this purpose.

On December 5, 1986 the draft bill and scheme were submitted to the Petition Committee of the Lok Sabha (Lower House of Indian Parliament) supported by the signature of more than 4 hundred thousand workers from all over the country. Thousands of workers wrote post cards to the Prime Minister with requests for an early hearing. Finally the NCC-CL was invited to present its demands and evidence before Petition Committee on 30th September, 1988, where along with oral evidence a number of significant documents were also submitted.

Meanwhile the Government on its own introduced a bill in Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Indian Parliament) which had a title similar to the one submitted by NCC-CL but which fell woefully short of providing social security to construction workers. The NCC-CL now had a new task on its hands. The serious short-comings of the bill introduced in the Rajya Sabha had to be explained at many fora to many people and that too in a short time. The NCC-CL submitted a well-argued critique of the    Government Bill to the Petition Committee.

On 25th July 1989 the Petition Committee submitted its report to the Lok Sabha. This Report upheld the stand of the NCC-CL when it recommended,

“The committee recommends that the bill pending in the Rajya Sabha be withdrawn and a fresh comprehensive bill be introduced so as to cater to the long felt demands of a hitherto neglected segment of the working class.”

What is more – the committee expressed a strong appreciation of the work done by the NCC-CL. It found that NCC-CL had “done considerable useful work at the grassroots level to organise the construction workers with a view to enabling them to demand central legislation as a right to provide security of employment and other social welfare measures.”

The Report of the Petitions Committee further added,

“since (NCC-CL) has done a good deal of pioneering work in this area and formulated certain proposals after in-depth study of the problems… it would have been appropriate if (NCC-CL) had also been invited by the Ministry for consultation and discussion on the proposed legislation… Even now the representatives of (NCC-CL) which is headed by an eminent person like Justice Krishna Iyer, may be invited for an exchange of views on the scope and objects of the Bill and how these can be best attained.”

In a similar vein the Petition Committee said,

“The Committee desires that the legislation proposed by the Campaign Committee may be examined, considered and all good features there of may be suitably incorporated in the Government Bill.” This report went a step further when it added, “it is for the Government to ensure that the legislation which is finally created encompassed all the above features to the extent practicable.”

Meanwhile a new government assumed power and agreed to withdraw the highly inadequate government bill. In March 1989 several hundred thousand signatures, probably nearly one million had been collected to support the NCC-CL demand for comprehensive legislation. In December 1991 a National Federation of Construction Labour, based in Bangalore, was established.

NCC-CL continued its efforts for central legislation in the form of meetings and dharnas, while at the same time supporting state level organisations which were working for legislation with the same spirit at the state level in states like Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

In November 1995 two ordinances on construction labour were issued by the government. As these fell short of the model draft bill prepared by the NCC-CL, the committee once again had to take up hectic activity to prevent retrograde legislation. NCC-CL worked hard to inform more and more people, particularly MPs and trade unions, about the gross inadequacy of these ordinances in meeting the aspirations of construction workers. Efforts made by this campaign played an important role in      construction workers’ demands finding a place in the election manifestos and programs of some political   parties, including the Common Minimum Program of the United Front. On 26th February 1996 construction workers observed a Protest Day all over the country. In Delhi a day long dharna organised by Nirman Mazdoor Panchayat Sangam was joined by over fifty delegations of construction workers (supported by other workers like fish workers) from various parts of the country.

In July 1996 two bills on construction workers were introduced in the Parliament. NCC-CL worked hard to take the message of better legislation to more and more MPs and some of them supported the NCC-CL suggestions openly in the Parliamentary debate. Some important amendments could be successfully adopted. For example the provision relating to cess collections for welfare of workers being deposited with the Boards and not with the Consolidated Fund. So the legislation which was eventually passed was much better than what was originally introduced, although it still fell much short of the aspirations of the NCC-CL as reflected in its model draft bill.

Anyway, now two important pieces of central legislation applicable all over India were a reality – the Building and Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 and the Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Cess Act, 1996. NCC-CL was happy about the big success but it was also quite emphatic about the shortcomings of this legislation. 

In the post legislation phase Nirmana and NCC-CL continued to work tirelessly for the welfare of construction workers at several levels. Firstly, the help of courts of law including the Supreme Court was sought for improving implementation and good success was achieved in this effort. Secondly, meetings were held repeatedly with officials to secure better implementation. Secondly, NCL organized several peaceful protests whenever a need for this arose in the course of the long struggle for implementation. Nirmana and NCL representatives participated in several mobilizations, meetings and seminars relating to the problems of construction workers to take forward the effective resolution of their problems. Several efforts were made to improve monitoring of implementation and carry out periodic documentation of real life conditions and new emerging problems of construction workers (such as periodic loss of employment at the time of extended periods of rise of air pollution levels in Delhi). In terms of continuing work with construction worker communities in places like Bawana, Shahbad Dairy, Rohini and Haiderpur, efforts with continuity were made to help in registration, other paper work relating for instance to grievance removal as well in securing various due benefits. Efforts were also made to maintain contacts with construction workers gathering at labour chowks or daily gathering points.

Keeping in view the continuing denial of benefits provided by legislation to many construction workers, the efforts of these organizations continue to be highly relevant and in addition they are also trying to improve the living conditions of workers’ colonies like in Bawana.

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Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, A Day in 2071 and Navjeevan. He is a regular contributor to Asia-Pacific Research.

Featured image is from the author

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