Contract work — an assault on rights of workers

One of the ways the bourgeoisie is attacking the rights of workers and increasing their exploitation is by employing them on a contract basis.

Hiring skilled workers in different professions on contract is in fact the preferred method of the bourgeoisie to overcome the victories achieved by workers through unionization and through struggles for their rights.

In schools and colleges, hospitals, banks, airlines and the airports, media, IT and IT enabled sectors, as well as in many other branches of industry — people are being increasingly hired on contract.

What does hiring on contract mean?

The employer hires a worker — say a journalist or an IT worker — on individual terms and conditions, set apart from the terms and conditions under which other workers have been hired in the same enterprise, or in the same branch of industry. The management may even offer various Monetary incentives to the worker in the contract. The individual worker has no means of fighting together with his or her co-workers for their collective rights, as the terms of employment vary from employee to employee in the same workplace. Instead he or she is supposed to compete with the other workers in the same workplace to prove his or her worth to the management. In such a worker’s head — he could be journalista, professional in a bank, in IT industry, or in any sector of industry or services — it is repeatedly dinned that he or she is not a worker.

A cursory study of the consequences of this kind of employment for the worker and for the employer shows that the degree of exploitation of the worker is greatly increased. Lacking even the partial security and comfort that a trade union provides, such a worker is unable to defend or fight for better conditions of work. Not only is he at the mercy of the management, he is working against his or her own interest by working harder and for longer hours to prove himself or herself to the bosses. There are no restrictions on length of working day. There is no restriction on night or day work — they are at the beck and call of the management. The concept of “overtime” is finished for these workers, and it is assumed by the owners that they have bought the mind and body of the worker for 24 hours with the salary that is agreed. Internet and computer, the possibility of continuing the work from home, the use of mobile phone, effectively ensures that the worker is on call 24 hours a day. There is no time for self. Such has become the life of lakhs of highly skilled women and men workers in our country.

Contract work is aimed at ensuring the maximum exploitation of workers. It is aimed at preventing the rise of unions. Today, women workers in different sectors working under contract — notably in IT and IT enabled sectors, in nursing, etc — have no protection when they go for night duty — Not a week passes without terrible reports of molestation or murder of young working women in the nights in different cities of the country — as they are wearily returning home from work.

Where trade unions already exist, the bourgeoisie resorts to the route of going through a contractor who employs workers on contract. These workers do all the work that other workers do, sometimes more, as they too are in the main skilled workers and the fear of losing their job hangs over their head like a sword. The contractor ensures that nobody works beyond 8 months continuously on his pay roll. In this way, the legislation on contract labour is followed in letter, and the worker is kept on tenter hooks for years on end, without being regularised. Contract workers are superexploited, as they do not get the benefits of regular workers and their job is always under threat.

The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act has been used by the bourgeoisie to spread the use of contract labour, rather than to abolish it. In the past, one of the positive results of the struggle of workers was a Supreme Court Judgment that called for abolition of contract labour in all jobs that could be considered as part of the core work of an enterprise. However, in recent years, the bourgeoisie has managed to increase the arena for contract labour enormously.

It is important for workers, both young and old, unionized and non unionized, to recognize that contract work is aimed at increasing the degree of exploitation of labour, for the benefit of the capitalist class. Forging the unity of all workers in defence of our job security and working conditions is the only way to resist this trend. Fighting for abolition of contract work is a challenge before the entire working class.