MUNNAR TEA PLANTATION & BANGALORE GARMENT WORKERS' STRUGGLES ? FROM A GENDER PERSPECTIVE
First of all, they are all women. Moreover, they are dalits & illiterate also. They are also known as "migrant labourers" to the people of Kerala migrated from Tamilnadu. But the things they have done last year most of the established organizations would not even dare to perceive! They had blocked Munnar town, continued a strike for nearly one month, did not allow any established Trade Union/political leaders (except one) to intervene & betray their struggle, built up an organization exclusively for themselves to represent their demands & rights & finally fought in local Panchayat election. And, all these have been done last year by 12,000 Munnar Tea Plantation female workers.
Take two. It was just few months back. Whole of Bangalore-Mysore Highway was blocked, Bangalore city was disconnected, confronted the police & goons from the front - nearly 70% of those who have done this were again illiterate women - women workers of Garment industry of Bangalore. The intensity of the struggle of more than a lakh worker was such that finally Modi government was forced to repeal the order restricting PF withdrawal.
Something new is emerging from almost outside the orbit of the so-called feminist movement. Take note of the fact, the women of Munnar not only resisted established political/trade union leaders, they also blocked male workers of Tea Plantation to come to the forefront. Regarding male workers, their main accusation was that they could be easily purchased only with a bottle of wine! So, they can no more be trusted & permitted to come to the leadership. Why have they resisted the trade union & political leaders? Because, those leaders are all pro-management & corrupt in nature. That was the main reason, but not the only one. In all the three existing trade unions operative in the tea gardens of the area, male workers are the only voice, even though female workers are more than 90% of the total workforce; male leaders never bothered to hear from the female workers.
What the separate voice of these female workers can be? We have not heard specifically from Munnar, but we have got some glimpses about the plights of Bangalore workers. Most probably, Munnar would be no different from Bangalore in this respect. In Bangalore Garment industry, more than 70% of the total workforce comprising more than 1.5 lakhs are women, but are paid lower than their male counterpart! They won't be granted a superior post than the male, whatever their skill may be, just because they are female! Duty hour is normally 10 hrs a day, but you need to stay at least one & half hours more in the factory just to fulfill your production target! Target is decided in such way! There is a Garment factory in Bangalore where a list of the non-performers (read, those who could not fulfill production target) is published in the Notice Board & they would be reprimanded next day! On the other hand, most of the male partners of the family work abroad as "migrant labour" to sustain the family - so onus comes on the female partner to look after the family affairs & she needs to return earliest to the home or her mohalla to perform all the household affairs after performing such a grilling session in the factory! And, if the male partner lives in home, then she has one more responsibility to perform - the night game! The story doesn't end here. Supervisors & managerial staffs very often attempt to avail sexual favor - and, for this they normally target the most submissive & vulnerable one - usual weapon is to lure them for promotion and/or higher pay. And, if the favor is denied, frequent change of machines but at the same time, production target would be higher, verbal & physical abuse in front of all for non-completion of target, and deduction of wages for non-fulfillment of production target!
Apparently, none of the gender related demands have surfaced or brought forward in both the struggles. Issues were of purely economic in nature. In case of Munnar Tea Plantation workers' struggle, demand was payment of Bonus @ 20% & increase of basis wages, while in case of Bangalore, it was demand of repealing of the government order on imposing restriction of withdrawal of PF. However, does that mean, gender aspect was not part of the struggle? In case of Munnar, it was simply a rebellion against age-old male domination continued in their lives. That has been manifested through the way struggle was handled solely by the women. In case of the Bangalore struggle, even though the gender aspect of the struggle was not so apparent, it was very much hidden in the struggle. It was a rebellion against exploitation faced by them as "industrial worker" & at the same time oppression & discrimination faced as "female worker". Those were the roots of the much of the anger & rage expressed in the street confrontations. However, it is also interesting to note here that in case of Bangalore, since nearly 30% of the workforce is male, here for the sake of the interest of the struggle, both the male & female workers have fought unitedly.
This is the only life left to all the female workers, be it in Gurgaon-Noida-Chennai-Kolkata, or in China-Indonesia-Bangladesh, working in the "new generation industries" born during the era of globalization! Lots of seminar-workshop may be organized by the NGOs on the issue of gender equality, so many heart-burning articles may be written by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak-Taslima Nasrin and innumerable pro-feminist intellectuals; further disintegration may occur among the petty-bourgeoisie intelligentsia members of some of the so-called Communist Revolutionary organizations on the issue of "freedom of love", but none have the guts to give such a grand slap in the face of capitalism, the harbinger of all sorts of exploitation, discrimination & oppression, that have been given by the so-called "illiterate"-"backward"-"migrant"-"dalit" women of Munnar & Bangalore!
Capitalism requires extraction of surplus value from human labour to earn its profit & gender identity of the human labour is absolutely superfluous to it. So, it has also made working class life brutalized & de-humanized by way of drawing women into the arena of social production. Capitalist exploitation has not only exposed women to the outside world, it has pushed them into the arena of the organized struggle. And, this has been started almost at the same time of the birth of capitalism. In the peak time of the French Revolution during 1789 & 1795, we find working women not only as the main participants in all the demonstrations, they "were the leading spirits" - bread riots were exclusively at their domain. According to one historian, "Where bread was concerned, this was their province: a bread riot without women is an inherent contradiction" (Christopher Hill, "The World Turned Upside Down"). Not only they took part actively in struggles, they had also built up women's organizations, most important among which was "Société des républicaines révolutionnaires" formed in 1793 & one among its leaders was a chocolate factory worker, named Pauline Leon. Then come to Paris Commune. March 18, 1871, i.e., on the very first day of the Commune, while at Montamartre, General Lecomte gave the soldiers order to fire, women stood in front of the soldiers & asked them, "Will you fire upon us? On your brothers? Our husbands? Our children?". With this intervention of the women, soldiers hesitated & finally fraternized with the crowd. Here also once again we find formation of revolutionary organization of the women, named "Women's Union for the Defense of Paris and for Aid to the Wounded". Women were also central to the production of arms needed for the defense of the Commune. Even in the history of the Nineteenth century American workers' movement, particularly in the organization named The Knights of Labour, we find it had approximately 50,000 working class women members. ?Mother' Jones herself was a leading organizer of The Knights of Labour. She had organized "women's armies" during mining disputes to chase strike breakers with mops, brooms & dishpans. Thousands of words won't be enough to describe the glorious role of working class women in Russian revolution, but a single example would be enough to get a glimpse - it was the women workers of Petrograd who started the February revolution, that also defying the instruction of the District Committee of the Bolshevik Party. On 22nd February (7th March), on the eve of the International Women's Day, women workers of some of the Textile factories started strike in support of the metal workers. It started to spread like wild fire. As stated earlier, initially Bolsheviks were reluctant; however, on 25th February, it made a call for general strike - meanwhile, more than two lakhs workers had already then downed their tools!
It is true that due to the defeat of the first forward march of the international socialist movement, this glorious role of the working class women to end exploitation-subjugation-discrimination from the history has for the time being gone in the back seat. And, in its place different variants of bourgeoisie feminism have overshadowed the arena of the women's liberation. However, women workers of Munnar & Bangalore along with their sisters of China-Indonesia-Bangladesh have once again, after a long lull, started to bring forth this forgotten glorious role of the working class women in the forefront.
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