The intensely exploitative conditions and lack of any rights for construction workers at the site of the Commonwealth Games, scheduled to be held in New Delhi in October 2010, have been brought out by a recent study conducted by the AITUC.

It may be noted that these construction projects have been assigned to different government authorities such as the CPWD, DDA, NDMC and MCD, who in turn have contracted out the work to private multinational construction companies such as Emaar-MGF, Infra Engineering, Simplex, DLF, etc. These companies have further contracted out the work to smaller construction companies, which in turn have employed contractors to provide the labour for the construction work.

These contract workers, most of them migrant workers from Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Eastern UP and West Bengal, are not paid the legally stipulated minimum wages or overtime. Unskilled workers are paid Rs.85 to Rs. 100 per day, as against the stipulated minimum wage of Rs. 142 for 8 hours of work. For a 12 hour day they are paid Rs. 134 to Rs. 150, whereas the stipulated wage is Rs. 284. Skilled workers are being paid Rs. 120 to Rs. 130 for 8 hours of work, while the stipulated wage is Rs. 158. No overtime is paid for the extra hours of work. This is in violation of the Minimum Wages Act, the Inter-state Migrant Workers (ISMW) Act and the 1982 Supreme Court judgement on the workers at the Asian Games site.

Workers are made to work on all seven days of the week at their regular wages, without any paid leave. This is in violation of the Delhi Building and other Construction Workers (DBCW) Rules and the Minimum Wages Act, according to which a weekly rest day is mandatory and if the workers work on rest days, they are to be paid double the stipulated daily wage.

In violation of the Contract Labour Act, the workers are not issued any identity cards or passbooks and therefore have no proof of their employment.

Most of the contract workers are not paid regularly and have a large amount of the wage money due to them pending with the contractors. In several cases, contractors are known to withhold a part of the wages, promising to send it to the workers’ families in their villages. Since the workers have no proof of work, it is doubtful if they will indeed get all their due wages on completion of the work. Representatives of the principal employer, the DDA or MCD, are not present at the time of payment of wages.

The construction workers at the site are not registered with the Construction Workers Welfare Board. By the DBCW rules, every contracting company is supposed to pay 2% of the total cost of the project into the welfare fund of the Board, meant to provide compensation to the workers in case of accident or death, as well as financial assistance in case of sickness or for other necessities. But these workers are denied any such benefits.

The workers are not provided basic safety equipment such as shoes, helmets, etc. Several accidents at the site have occurred, which have been covered up by the construction company. No ‘outsiders’, including trade unions are allowed inside the huge boundary walls of the construction site.

At least 5% of the workers are women, who are paid less than the men for the same work, in violation of the Equal Remuneration Act.

The construction workers are forced to live in cramped quarters made of tin and asbestos sheets, without electricity, water supply or sanitation.

Labour Enforcement Officers appointed by the labour department of the government are reported to be working in open collusion with the construction companies, turning a blind eye to the conditions of the workers. Taking advantage of the vulnerability and helplessness of the poor migrant workers and their desperate need for a livelihood, the authorities and the big construction companies are together overseeing this inhuman exploitation, right under the very nose of the Delhi government and the central government.

The Commonwealth Games are being portrayed as a matter of ‘national pride’, as the Indian ruling class positions itself as one of the big powers in the global arena. However, the conditions of the workers at the Commonwealth Games site, in the heart of the capital city, are one more glaring example of how this big power status of the Indian bourgeoisie is based on the most barbaric forms of exploitation of our working class and people.