|
About
the Collection
I.
"Bidi" and
SEWA
Bidis are
indigenous cigarettes smoked by the lower middle class and
the poor sections of the country. Rolling tobacco in
particular leaf called the Tendu leaf makes these
cigarettes. As per the annual report of Ministry of Labour
for 2001,the bidi industry is estimated to provide
employment to 4,41,100 people in the country, out of
these, fifty thousand people are in Gujarat alone. In
Ahmedabad some 15000 workers are supposed to be engaged in
the bidi industry. Ninety percent of the bidi workers in
the country are the home-based workers. Most of them are
women. They obtain raw materials- Tendu leaves and tobacco
from the employers/contractors; roll bidis and hand-over
the finished product to them. The workers also work
according to the sale purchase system so that the
employers can show them as working on their own account,
as self-employed workers and not as those employed by
them, and thus save themselves for providing any welfare
benefits to the worker.
In the
unorganized sector, the bidi industry is among the few
trades, which are regulated by law – The Bidi and Cigar
Workers Welfare Fund Act, The Bidi and Cigar Workers Act
are there to protect the interest of bidi workers. The
minimum wages for bidi workers is fixed on the piece rate
per thousand bidis. In Gujarat the piece- rate is linked
to the dearness allowance i.e. the D.A. Every six months
if the DA is revised the minimum wage for the bidi workers
is to be changed accordingly.
Under the
Bidi Welfare Fund Act, the bidi workers receive
scholarships and school uniform for their children,
maternity benefits, free health services, housing and life
insurance along with sports and recreation services. Fund
for all these social security services come from a cess
levied on all employers in bidi industry.
II.
SEWA’s
Intervention:
SEWA started
organising bidi workers in 1978 when a poor bidi roller,
Chandabibi, from Patan (a town some 90 km. away from
Ahmedabad) approached SEWA to help her in her struggle
against her employers. She was earning Rs. 4 a day. There
was a hospital for bidi workers and their family members,
but she could not get any benefit from it. The doctor
won’t allow them in the hospital without an identity card
issued by the employer; the employer won’t issue the
identity cards to the bidi workers to skip from the legal
responsibility. The employers would change the names of
the bidi rollers frequently. Thus none of the bidi rollers
would get the benefits given to him/her under the law. The
bidi rollers would suffer poverty, unhygienic working, and
living conditions and terrible health problems due to
remaining continuously in a tiny room filled with tobacco
dust. Frustrated with this, Chandabibi became the first
bidi worker to approach SEWA. SEWA’s intervention started
in bidi industry with this incident and moved on to become
a long drawn battle. The movement gained its momentum when
the Padmashali women, originally belonging to Andhra
Pradesh joined it at Ahmedabad. The mothers and grand
mothers of these women had a history of association with
union movements. The Muslim and the Koshti women also
joined hands with them to make it the most successful
movement legally.
SEWA's
struggle for tobacco agriculture workers (or Khali Kamdar,
as they are known within Gujarat) started when, its
leadership got sensitized about the conditions of women
tobacco agriculture workers while working for the bidi
workers. SEWA organized the women working in the tobacco
fields and tobacco processing factories in Kheda district.
It educated them about their rights through Workers
Education Classes, empowered them to talk in terms of
minimum wages & Minimum Wages Act, and fought many
cases for them under the Industrial Dispute Act. The
senior Khali Leaders in their profiles retells the history
of this struggle. Different images of news clippings show
its advocacy efforts for the tobacco agriculture workers,
families in the court of Labour Commissioner, & Asst
labour Commissioner, & with the local Members of
Legislative Assembly (MLA) The collection unfolds the
whole process of tobacco agriculture workers getting
united, and fighting successfully against retrenchment,
negotiating on reemployment, protesting against employing
cheap labours from other states. SEWA also encouraged them
to think of alternative employment, explored the
opportunities for such employments. SEWA also fought for
the implementation of benefit schemess, childcare,
maternity benefits, opening up the crche pensions
provident fund, casual leave, and bonus retirement
benefits, statuary of Minimum Wages. SEWA also fought for
different compensations for them, for abolition of
contract methods in tobacco agriculture. The collection
also bring in light how on one hand SEWA worked closely
with the Association of Tobacco Factory Owners to bring
about the solutions to the issues of workers, and, on the
other hand it worked with Life Insurance Corporation of
India to make policies for insuring tobacco agriculture
workers. The profiles of the workers give their personal
experiences about the struggle and there is also lists of
publications which have some material related to the
struggle of tobacco agriculture workers.
Collection
Map
|
