Migrant workers are those folks who travel within their country or from their own country to another in search of work. They don’t inhabit permanently at the place where they are labouring. According to ILO “migrant worker is defined as a person who migrates from one country to another (or who has migrated from one country to another) with a view to being employed other than on his own account, and includes any person regularly admitted as a migrant for employment.”**[i]**
The UN International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families outlines a migrant worker as, “a person who is to be engaged, is engaged or has been engaged in a remunerated activity in a state of which he or she is not a citizen”.[ii]
There are several types of migrants. The two major types are
- Long-standing migrants: Those who move from place A to place B and remain permanently in place B.
- Seasonal migrants: They move to escape heat or winter from one place to another. It is common in agriculture.
There is a presence of other groups too, but we should be most worried about people who are known as footloose migrant workers. The footloose migrant has no clear impression of a final destination. They work with a contractor at a construction site in a town for some specific days. At the end of that contractual period, they have nothing left with them. The contractor then puts them under other contractors in other states. And that goes on open-endedly. That is a worthless life with total, endless uncertainty.
Olden times- Migrant Workers
The 2011 census data[iii] shows that the total number of migrant workers is 45.36 crore or 37% of India’s population. Many states had proposed relaxation of various labour laws. But it is a discouragement of the Constitution and existing laws. The most basic thing is that every convention on labour[iv] in the world has respected the eight-hour work day. But the reality is different. The workers have no choice whether they want to do the extra working hours or not. Many industries have adopted the system of eight hours work because it increases the efficiency of the workers. Regardless of that, in India the majority believe that long working hours will increase the productivity level. This is a violation of basic human rights of workers or we can say that it is an enslavement of workers.
COVID-19 Crisis and migrant labourers
The implications of this pandemic affect mostly the worker class. One of the most telling human stories in the present COVID-19 outbreak and the resulting nationwide lockdown is that of stuck migrant workers.
According to the World Bank, around 40 million migrants’ livelihoods have been jammed by the nationwide lockdown. Approximately, 60,000 internal migrants moved from urban areas to rural areas of origin in a few days.
In particular, the state of women and children is devastating from this due to reduction of nutrients. There are millions of young girls in schools across the country who are entitled to free sanitary napkins, and because of the shutting down of schools they are facing health issues as they have to stay in unhygienic conditions as it is not possible for them to afford sanitary napkins in this pandemic because its distribution too has come to a halt.
Another suffering is that migrant workers are walking long distances to reach their homes due to the lack of jobs and the shutting down of the transport systems. One such story is that a pregnant migrant woman who was going back to her home in MP who gave birth on the road, rested only for two hours and restarted her journey. With all of this shutting off they are exposed to thirst and hunger and other several diseases. The migrant workers are not aware of the fact that the lockdown had suspended all public transport until the lockdown was lifted and further guidelines were issued.
These sufferings and sorrows of the migrant workers arise because of inadequate help and inequality. This can be done away with only by understanding the importance of “justice for all: Social, economic, and political…” as embedded in our Constitution. There is a lack of empathy for the worker classes. They should be prioritized.
The Covid-19 crisis has made it obligatory for India to finally acknowledge the migrants and issues faced by them. Migrant workers earn money only by moving here and there for work. Politicians haven’t pictured the range of the issue at hand. We can see them everywhere; in hotels, small industries, construction, metro stations, tourism and in many more uncountable places. Yet, we never took migrant workers as a group to be taken seriously. We underestimated their ability to come together with unity.
The nation had underestimated the role that has been played by the migrants in India. We have denied their contribution and existence. Can we think of a city like Mumbai or Delhi without migrants? The answer is No. In fact, migrants constitute around 30%-40% of the economies of many cities. We cannot take the economy upwards while not even looking at them. The industries cannot work without them. For efficient productivity we need those migrant workers.
Roots of this condition of Migrant Workers
- Medical Certificate: punishment for migrant workers
The Govt. did little to help workers as on 29 April they announced that workers that had been screened or have no symptoms of virus can travel. Due to this many States made it mandatory for workers that they should possess medical certificate before boarding trains. As they are not properly educated and because of lack of resources it is not possible for them to use these complex websites and as there are no help desks for the same, it becomes very difficult for the migrant workers to reach back to their families**.**
- Taking out of fares from penniless workers
The Indian Government asserted that they are paying 85% percent of the fare of train tickets but this is not the reality as these unemployed destitute workers are paying the full amount of the fare of the Shramik trains to go back to their homes.
- Abandoning the Migrant workers
Due to COVID, a lot of Indians are left without a home. They are travelling barefoot with their children and there is uncertainty as to what difficulties they would come across. Initially, the police were detaining them to prevent the spread of coronavirus but by doing so, the workers have been forced to take harsh steps. Some districts have even stopped its people by ordering them not to help these migrants. The government is refusing to accept these sufferings of migrant workers.
Conclusion and Suggestions
It is so dreadful for migrant workers to live this life. There is an urgent need to provide help to these workers. Every migrant in the country should be provided with proper food and obviously some money for lost wages to live their life in a crisis like this. The relief fund contributed by the country should not be only used for curing the disease but also to fulfill basic needs of these migrant workers. The state and Central governments should work in tandem to solve this issue. India really needs a scheme to tide over the shift between jobs so that it will benefit the workers till they get a job again. This pandemic, and the belief that everything will be same again can lead to oppression of migrant workers.
Authored by
Meenakshi Gupta and Vipul Thakral
Ideal Institute of Management and Technology
[i] International Labour Organization, https://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/ilc/ilc87/r3-1b2.htm
[ii] Part 1, Article 2 https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CMW.aspx
[iii] 2011 Census of India Report
[iv] S.N. Mishra Textbook on Labour Laws (29th Edition, 2019)