The sad plight of workers in the vast unorganised sector where there is little enforcement of labour laws is well known. Even worse is the situation of the migrant workers who are increasingly constituting a higher and higher proportion of the unorganised labour force. One such set of migrant labourers are the seasonal workers engaged by the Sugar factories in South Gujarat for cutting sugar cane. Adivasi labourers from Maharashtra and Gujarat come in their lakhs at the end of the monsoons to cut sugarcane for the sugar factories. This has been going on for close to half a century now. There are labour contractors called Mukaddams engaged by the sugar factories who bring the labourers to the sugar cane fields to cut the sugar cane. Thus, the labourers do not have any direct contract with the sugar factories. Consequently, there is tremendous exploitation in terms of both low wages and inhospitable working and living conditions.
There have been several attempts over the years at organising this huge workforce numbering in lakhs of labourers but given the clout of the sugar mill owners nothing much has been achieved. Five years ago the Majur Adhikar Manch (MAM), head quartered in Ahmedabad, opened an office in Surat which is the main city in South Gujarat and the epicentre of the Sugar Mills. The MAM has been working to organise the unorganised and especially the migrant workers in Gujarat for over a decade and a half in the brick kilns, construction industry and agriculture. So five years ago they began organising the sugar cane workers also. However, due to the Mukaddam system, it is not possible to directly organise the workers and so the contractors also have to be involved in the process of making demands of the sugar mills. Since it is difficult to organise the workers at the place of work, MAM began extensive campaigning in the source areas well in advance of the start of the sugar cane cutting season which begins in October.
Here is what Sudhir Katyar, senior activist of the MAM, has to say about the initial mobilisation process started in 2015 - "In modern Indian history, Bardoli is famous as the site of a Gandhian agitation led by the redoubtable ‘Sardar’ Patel. Researchers of Marxist hues later wrote that while this famous satyagraha was being staged, the farm servants of the Patels, the halpatis, continued to eke out a precarious bonded existence on the very farms whose revenue was being disputed by the agitating farmers. In neo modern India, Bardoli is known as the largest market for second hand cars. The reason being the large number of NRI Patels who visit every year buying a new car and then leaving it behind. A large part of this prosperity owes to sugar cultivation. Bardoli has the larget sugar factory in South Gujarat. Denis, the Union team leader, remarked that the prosperity of Patels around Bardoli beats even the Kheda Patels. So to be able to have held a meeting in Bardoli town itself was a major achievement. The sugar factory management was ready. It was difficult to get a suitable venue for the meeting. The municipality kept postponing permission for the public ground till the last moment. The temple where an earlier meeting was held, gave a flimsy pretext for not giving their premises. Luckily the Union was able to get a hall nearby owned by a Medical Foundation. The factory supervisors kept a strict watch on the movement of workers and many workers who wanted to come were sent back by them. In the end some 250 workers and contractors (locally known as mukaddams) came for the meeting. While this was much below expectations, it still marked a significant movement forward. The meeting got good media coverage. Supporters also came from Surat city. The meeting deliberated the next action. However it was clear that there is need for much more mobilization before a decisive step like work stoppage can be contemplated. The biggest road block to work stoppage is the fact that the contractors who control the workers have lent huge amounts to workers and are fearful of losing this amount if there is work stoppage and workers go back".
There were various ups and downs over the next four years till finally last year the MAM was able to get sufficient mobilisation work done in the source areas for it to be able to negotiate from there with the factory owners to tell them that they would not go for cutting sugar cane unless the piece rates were hiked. Since the factory managements did not accede to the demands the MAM called a strike. The strike went on for about 10 days but then the administration stepped in to assist the factory owners in breaking the strike. The Mukaddams could not sustain for long given the fact that they had leant huge sums to the workers and feared they would lose the money if work did not start. So the factory owners began sending trucks to bring those workers and Mukaddams who were weakening. The MAM tried to stop this by blocking the trucks but the police intervened and released the trucks. Thus, the strike had to be called off without getting an increase in piece rates for sugar cutting.
This year the mobilisation process began well in advance and received very good response from both the Mukaddams and workers. Meetings in the source areas were well attended and a charter of demands was drawn up and submitted to the factory owners and the administration asserting that unless these demands were met, the workers would boycott sugar cane cutting this year. Such was the strength of this mobilisation that the factory owners fearing a major disruption in the sugar cutting have decided to hike rates. Sudhir Katyar reports on this great victory - "Five years of struggle have paid fruit. Today cooperative factories of South Gujarat announced an increase in wage rate of Rs. 25 per ton for sugarcane harvesting workers and Rs. 5 per ton for their contractors. The impact means that nearly 2.5 lakhs tribal workers of Dang and Tapi districts of Gujarat and Dhule and Nandurbar districts of Maharashtra will receive an additional Rs. 60 crores in wages. The workers have been agitating for last five years under the banner of Majur Adhikar Manch. Last year, workers from Dang imposed a moratorium on migration in the beginning of the season, refusing to migrate for 10 days unless wages were hiked. The Union also gave a call for work stoppage in the middle of the season. The struggle shows that even in these difficult times, if workers unite they can win."
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