The All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) on Friday held a national convention with the clarion call ‘Listen to the Voice of Sanitation Workers’, bringing together sanitation workers and their representatives from all over the country.
The convention, organised at Jantar Mantar, sought to reproach the BJP government’s flagship Swachh Bharat Mission as mere “political hogwash”. It also brought to the forefront the plight of sanitation workers — the real flag-bearers of swachhta — and yet resigned to the government’s apathy.
The workers and their representatives also termed the Swachh Bharat campaign an “insult”.
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AICCTU national general secretary Rajiv Dimri spoke about the irony of the sanitation workers’ plight.
“Despite being the backbone of the cleanliness campaign, sanitation workers are deprived of social security, alternate employment opportunities and dignity at work. It is unfortunate that even today Dalits form the mainstay of sanitation work and manual scavenging refuses to go. It is equally unfortunate that the government is dragging its feet on technological innovations to replace manual scavengers,” he said.
Condemning the spate of deaths of workers cleaning sewer lines or tanks, Mr. Dimri spoke about the recent deaths in Varanasi, where the Prime Minister inaugurated the same sewage treatment plant where the deaths had taken place.
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Angul Zilla Safai Karmajibi Sangha working president Suresh Behera and general secretary Mithun Behera voiced their grievances about the unhealthy conditions they are made to work under. Having worked for almost two decades now, they said, their salaries are not aligned with that of a permanent job, they are not provided gloves or head gear and are still deprived of Employees’ State Insurance benefits.
“We have written to the Sub-Collector and Collector, but to no avail. Government officials have colluded with contractors and we have to bear the brunt,” they said.
Sharing a similar grievance, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) general secretary Nirmala criticised the contract system and said unionisation has helped tackle the “virtual slavery” of workers by contractors.
“Swachh Bharat is not the PM standing at a podium and inaugurating the programme or an actor holding a broom and sweeping the streets for a few minutes. The real actors are sanitation workers, who ironically do not even get an ounce of their rightful claims. They are still deprived of social dignity and most scavenging work is still done by Dalits, which amounts to systemic oppression. Even today, most workers do not get wages on time,” she said.