In India, COVID-19 has put the spotlight on migrant workers’ precarious working conditions. First, the sweeping lockdown left many workers jobless, forcing them to walk hundreds of kilometers to their native villages. Now, in a reaction to the coronavirus, states are loosening labor laws in a bid to get their economies up and running. As a consequence, migrant laborers have to work even more hours. 

Punjab and Gujarat amended their Factories Act in April, increasing the work time to 72 hours every week. Rajasthan has upped working hours from 8 to 12 hours per day. Uttar Pradesh (UP) has exempted companies from almost all labor laws for the next three years. The relaxed UP laws relate to occupational safety, health, and working conditions, and those that pertain to contract workers and migrant laborers. 

An estimated 450 million internal migrant workers make up 92 percent of the workforce in India, and no one seems to be looking after these workers. More than 700 million internal migrants globally continue to navigate the risk of working, despite the health crisis.

Migrant laborers in India have long been particularly vulnerable to unfair labor practices. And labor protections often weaken further during crises. The recent call to loosen labor laws in UP and Gujarat dangerously sidesteps the minimal protections in place for migrant workers in India. This post draws from my dissertation fieldwork in 2019 that investigates the aspirations and migration decisions of rural households in Nuapada District in the state of Odisha.

Hiring Practices

To begin with, hiring practices fail to protect migrant labor. For example, labor contractors lure workers with the prospect of cash advances into modern bondage working in brick kilns. In many cases, these workers who come from rural areas don’t know the destination and rely on the contractors’ verbal assurances. Labor contractors in the construction and brick kiln industries do not operate openly. In the case of brick kiln workers in Odisha, the District Labor Office (DLO) issues the license for contractors for a specific number of workers. These licensed contractors however recruit remotely through other unlicensed subcontractors in the village. My interviews with migrant workers indicate that unlicensed subcontractors hire four to five times more workers than the license permits. The additional workers are completely invisible to the District Labor Office, although contractors are expected to register workers by submitting their contact information. This registration is also mandatory so that a family can access benefits like life insurance in case of a fatality.

Without any records of who is hiring and who is being hired, labor subcontractors as well as workers are completely invisible to the state and therefore cannot get any formal state protection. Further, because licensed contractors and sub-contractors as well as undocumented labor operate behind the scenes, there’s a dangerous accountability gap. Workers don’t know who should ensure their safety. As the COVID-19 crisis shows, non-standard broker practices weaken the first line of accountability for the workers, who are expected to arrange for everything from transport back home and food, to coronavirus tests after the last day of work. 

Exploitation

Second, the physical location of worksites further adds to the vulnerability of migrant workers. Most heavy industries are located on the periphery or outside the residential and well-connected areas of cities or towns. During my visit to brick kilns in Karimnagar, for example, I found that worksites—that doubled as workers’ homes—were in isolated areas far from the closest town. Any access to public amenities like a hospital or a police station largely depends on the mercy of brick-kiln owners. 

Further, for workers living in makeshift rooms right beside the brick kilns, working hours are hardly regulated. A12- to 13-hour day is not unusual, according to migrant workers I met. The inability to move without the knowledge or support of industry owners leads to arbitrary and exploitative norms. The brick kiln owners allowed workers to visit the nearby village for grocery shopping only once a day. But they do not allow two brick kiln workers to go to the village on the same day of the week. Kiln owners seem to suspect workers may share stories of mishaps and accidents at their kilns.  

Migrant workers involved in manual daily-wage work are traditionally exposed to bonded labor,  which is forced labor in lieu of debt, and other forms of modern slavery. The protection mechanisms vary drastically across the country. Places that are historical sources of migrant labor are forced to develop protections like worker registration and licensing of labor contractors, that remain largely opaque. In Nuapada, the district labor office is the local authority closest to workers. For a long time, migrant workers had to be registered at the district labor office which could be as much as 50 to 70 km or more away from the migrant’s village. The incentives to register include life insurance for the worker and a monetary allowance for childcare. 

Bureaucracy

Now that panchayats, the village level governing bodies, register migrant workers, the number of registrations may have risen. Even with more workers registered, freeing oneself from bonded labor remains a bureaucratic process. To be rescued, the worker must file a complaint at the labor office associated with their residence. However, it’s almost impossible for a worker at a brick kiln in Karimnagar to file a complaint with the Nuapada labor office. Between the low literacy levels of migrant labor, their poor access to telephones, and the great distance between the workplace and workers’ home villages, this option is unrealistic.

Invisible migrant labor brokers, isolated workplaces, and prevalent bonded labor practices erode any safety mechanisms for migrant workers in times of crisis. Migrant labor protection has to compete with demands of economic growth and urban development, forces that would maintain the status quo. 

The occupational safety protections for migrant workers are weak by design. The translucent (if not opaque) labor practices also indicate why the recent criticism of the central government’s response will not lead to significant labor reforms. In Karnataka, builders actively lobbied with the regional government to restrict the mobility of migrant workers. The state governments recently announced the possibility of relaxing labor laws to help local manufacturing and construction businesses.  

Migrant workers in India were leading a life where exploitation and vulnerability were the norms. The COVID-19 crisis has made their vulnerability more visible to everyone. Lacking strong worker safeguards, migrant labor cannot claim protection from the state. And the state can conveniently forget about these workers.