Editorial-
They power development with their sweat, plodding away even though they themselves tend to get bypassed from the benefits they help create; they are often humiliated and yet they persevere. Had it not been for them, the short-sighted planners who chart development for the country would have won and we would have been a century more behind times. Take a look around, the sewage line does not get laid only because there is a budget for it, but because there are stomachs desperate enough to work through cold, wet nights to lay them. Cardamom is not a cash crop because Sikkim has progressive farmers, but because there are backs willing to take the load by the maund. Trekking is possible not only because Sikkim is pretty, but because realities are quite ugly for some making them carry loads wearing slippers and plastic shoes up trails where even the tougher trekkers slip despite being shod in much firmer soles. They do not figure in the pecking order and in most cases, don’t even get to enjoy the infrastructure they build. Unfortunately, they also make easy targets. Take for example the only violence recorded in the anti-hydel protests in which labourers employed by hydel developers were beaten up in North Sikkim. They also made up the abandoned hundreds when everything collapsed in Sikkim on 18 September 2011. They lost wages, walked to their escapes, would not have received any compensation and many are probably back at work in Sikkim. Such cases, one hopes, are rare. What is definitely not rare however is the general anonymity in which the labour force works and fades. This again, is not a government’s failing, but a societal shortcoming. It is because we, as consumers, do not pay enough heed to basic human rights that the labourers, as a class, get denied. Sikkim might still lack adequate labour protection laws, but the only agency treating the labourers well is the government with its respectable daily wage rates. The question that needs to be asked next is how many private employers recognise this minimum wage and pay their labourers accordingly? How many domestic servants, even discounting meals, are offered such remuneration? The labour force does not require a more compassionate government, it requires fellow citizens who notice them, listen to them, respect them and when the situation demands, speaks for them. This is one commitment the people can resolve to make this Labour Day.
They power development with their sweat, plodding away even though they themselves tend to get bypassed from the benefits they help create; they are often humiliated and yet they persevere. Had it not been for them, the short-sighted planners who chart development for the country would have won and we would have been a century more behind times. Take a look around, the sewage line does not get laid only because there is a budget for it, but because there are stomachs desperate enough to work through cold, wet nights to lay them. Cardamom is not a cash crop because Sikkim has progressive farmers, but because there are backs willing to take the load by the maund. Trekking is possible not only because Sikkim is pretty, but because realities are quite ugly for some making them carry loads wearing slippers and plastic shoes up trails where even the tougher trekkers slip despite being shod in much firmer soles. They do not figure in the pecking order and in most cases, don’t even get to enjoy the infrastructure they build. Unfortunately, they also make easy targets. Take for example the only violence recorded in the anti-hydel protests in which labourers employed by hydel developers were beaten up in North Sikkim. They also made up the abandoned hundreds when everything collapsed in Sikkim on 18 September 2011. They lost wages, walked to their escapes, would not have received any compensation and many are probably back at work in Sikkim. Such cases, one hopes, are rare. What is definitely not rare however is the general anonymity in which the labour force works and fades. This again, is not a government’s failing, but a societal shortcoming. It is because we, as consumers, do not pay enough heed to basic human rights that the labourers, as a class, get denied. Sikkim might still lack adequate labour protection laws, but the only agency treating the labourers well is the government with its respectable daily wage rates. The question that needs to be asked next is how many private employers recognise this minimum wage and pay their labourers accordingly? How many domestic servants, even discounting meals, are offered such remuneration? The labour force does not require a more compassionate government, it requires fellow citizens who notice them, listen to them, respect them and when the situation demands, speaks for them. This is one commitment the people can resolve to make this Labour Day.
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