India, agricultural workers: Joining a trade union to emerge from poverty

The CFDT supports the action of an Indian NGO who helps the most marginalised populations.

“Although we work the land but we are not considered as workers. In reality, we are servants without rights” said a spokesperson for agricultural workers in the Nanjungud region, Karnataka (Southern India). Considering that almost two thirds of the Indian population of 1.2 billion inhabitants earn their living through agriculture, this sector represents a real social challenge.

India is a giant in terms of global agriculture. Its green revolution allowed it to achieve food self-sufficiency in the 1970s and in terms of agricultural yield, India currently ranks fourth globally. However, this success is accompanied by the bitter observation that agricultural workers often earn less than two dollars per day and work in difficult conditions without any form of social protection or representation. Isolated, in debt, many small Indian farmers commit suicide. As their work is informal and unregistered, agricultural workers are not supported by the Indian trade union centres. In fact, the latter currently only represent workers in the “formal” sector (civil servants, workers in big companies) which accounts for only 10% of the working population.

FEDINA’s method: access to rights

Given this situation, FEDINA, an NGO who works with marginalised populations in four states in Southern India (Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andra Pradesh and Pondichéry) has prioritised the organising of workers in the informal sector. FEDINA works with a network of 29 groups, called a network of social action groups, a network which includes both associations and trade unions. The common factor shared by these groups is that they all work on the ground with marginalised people. By fostering awareness of their rights through training and campaigns, the groups’ actions allows workers to act as interlocutors with the public authorities and the dominant classes (high castes, land owners etc.) to demand the application of existing laws, in particular the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (see adjacent text box).

The CFDT at agricultural workers’ side

Since 2009, the CFDT has supported the actions of FEDINA. “But this support is not just financial support” reminds Duarte Barreto, Director of the Indian NGO. “If we called on the CFDT, it is to benefit from their expertise and to begin working as a network on an international scale”. Last April, the Institut Belleville, the institute established by the CFDT to develop international solidarity organised, in collaboration with the CFDT’s Fédération Générale Agroalimentaire (FGA) and the IUF’s Latin-American regional organisation1, a seminar to exchange experiences and practices called “agricultural workers: organising to improve labour conditions and to defend fundamental labour rights”.

Indecent working conditions

For a week, Indian agricultural workers shared their concerns: low income, salary inequality between men and women, the use of pesticides without protection, mechanisation, seasonal migration, bullying, violence against the adivasis (an Aboriginal people), and forced labour. A genuine exchange on mobilisation techniques took place between the workers, the group leaders and trade unionists from Europe and Latin America, an exchange facilitated by presenting communication tools. Eric Swartvagher from the FGA presented the campaign “seasonal workers” to trade union leaders, produced by the CFDT using a bus which travels around each year looking for workers in precarious employment, particularly in agriculture to provide them with information about their rights. Carlos Aguirre from the IUF showed a documentary “A day in the cane fields, the human machinery of ethanol” made by his organisation on the working conditions in the cane fields in Brazil. This film left the Indian workers speechless. They realised that in Brazil, on the other side of the world, people were carrying out the same work as them in equally difficult conditions.

Organising and structuring

For Theresia, one of FEDINA’s coordinators, “the fact the agricultural workers came in large numbers (130 people, ed. note) demonstrates the interest generated by organising, access to rights and the improvement of labour conditions. And the majority of those taking part in the seminar lose a day’s pay”. Asked for their comments and expectations at the end of the seminar, agricultural workers’ representatives were unanimous: “we want to continue to organise better and to structure ourselves in federations and networks to become stronger”. In India where the caste system creates a rigid social hierarchy which constitutes a real obstacle to trade union action, this horizontal solidarity is even more necessary.

Frédérique Lellouche

The national law guaranteeing rural employment, a tool to reduce poverty

The 2005 Indian law entitled the “National Rural Employment Guarantee Act” (NREGA) marks an important point in Indian social history. The law guarantees a minimum of 100 days’ work per household at minimum wage on public building sites. Workers who do not receive work 15 days from the date they made the demand can apply for unemployment benefits. This law encourages women to work as a third of the jobs must be reserved for women. Furthermore, this mechanism introduces strict transparency standards in order to combat the scourge of corruption.