The occasion of 134th May Day in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic is indeed sombre. At no point in the 250-year history of capitalism has been there as severe a lockdown on human interaction and consequently on economic activities. The great factories across the world have come to a grinding halt.
The worst hit
In India, the imposition of the harsh lockdown measures has brought into sharp focus the miseries of the migrant workers in our cities. The agrarian crisis ravaging the rural hinterlands combined with the uneven rates of regional development has pushed a vast reserve army of workers into distress migration. The economic survey of 2017-18 estimated the number of internal migrant workers at 13.9 crore, 30% of the total workforce of the country. The economic survey of 2019-20 estimates that there are only 4.7 crore workers in formal employment, a measly 9.8% of the workforce. This means that more than 90% of the workforce in our country has little or no access to employment-related social security benefits such as health insurance, pension or provident fund.
For these workers, there is simply no difference between “life and livelihood”; only with gainful livelihood is life possible for them. This is the harsh reality that the State has chosen to ignore today. How else can one explain the fact that the lockdown was announced with barely four hours’ notice? Physical distancing norms hold no meaning in the shanty towns and the labour camps of our cities. It is only the middle and the upper classes that can afford an economic shutdown of 40 days and applaud social distancing measures, while the workers are left to fend off the greatest economic crisis of the century all by themselves. It is high time that the State provides universal social security for the working class.
‘Counter-productive’
Added to these miseries, there is now a growing clamour to lengthen the working day and several States in India have introduced 12-hour shifts. This is not only a complete betrayal of the social contract between the State and the working class but more objectively it is counter-productive. According to a recent CMIE survey, the unemployment rate in India is estimated to be as high as 23%, the highest in the nation’s history. Before the onset of the pandemic, the manufacturing sector in India was already in the grip of a recession with negative growth over two quarters. In such a recessionary environment, the lengthening of the work day will increase the unemployment rate as millions of contract and temporary workers stand to lose their jobs. This will result in a general decline of aggregate demand and further intensify the economic crisis.
(The writer is Secretary, All India Trade Union Congress)
