Gurgaon Workers News - March/April 2013

By Dilip -
GurgaonWorkersNews - Newsletter 56 - March/April 2013

full version: www.gurgaonworkersnews.wordpress.com

Gurgaon in Haryana is presented as the shining India, a symbol of capitalist success promising a better life for everyone behind the gateway of development. At a first glance the office towers and shopping malls reflect this chimera and even the facades of the garment factories look like three star hotels. Behind the facade, behind the factory walls and in the side streets of the industrial areas thousands of workers keep the rat-race going, producing cars and scooters for the middle-classes which end up in the traffic jam on the new highway between Delhi and Gurgaon. Thousands of young proletarianised middle class people lose time, energy and academic aspirations on night-shifts in call centres, selling loan schemes to working-class people in the US or pre-paid electricity schemes to the poor in the UK. Next door, thousands of rural-migrant workers up-rooted by the rural crisis stitch and sew for export, competing with their angry brothers and sisters in Bangladesh or Vietnam. And the rat-race will not stop; on the outskirts of Gurgaon, new industrial zones turn soil into over-capacities. 

 The following newsletter documents some of the developments in and around this miserable boom region. If you want to know more about working and struggling in Gurgaon, if you want more info about or even contribute to this project, please do so via: gurgaon_workers_news@yahoo.co.uk

In the March/April 2013 issue you can find:

1) Proletarian Experiences -Daily life stories and reports from a workers' perspective

* Under the Surface / On the Volcano - Short workers' reports from 17 different automobile and textile factories in Gurgaon, Manesar, Okhla and Faridabad

* Framed - Story of a security guard and his experience with factory management and police2) Collective Action -
Reports on proletarian struggles in the area

* From the 4th of June 2011 to the 18th of July 2012 and beyond - On the cycle of struggle at Maruti Suzuki Manesar - Political summary and critique of current attempts of organising resistance amongst sacked Maruti workers, distributed in Fariadbad Majdoor Samachar February 2013 issue. Plus short look at current wage agreements and crisis in the automobile industry in India.

* Summary of struggle at Eastern Medikit in Gurgaon - Difficult experiences of hundreds of permanent workers employed by a medical equipment manufacturer, who has abandoned and re-located the factory.

* Report on struggle at Senior Flextronics automobile supplier in Manesar - Senior Flexonics is a multi-national automobile supplier. Workers in the Manesar plant have been trapped between lock-out and symbolic actions.

* Text on strike of hospital nurses in Faridabad - In 2012 around 330 nurses employed at Asian Institute of Medical Sciences and 130 nurses at QRG Central Hospital in Faridabad went on strike for higher wages and workplace related improvements.

* Report on blind workers strike in Faridabad - In two small industrial areas in Delhi and Faridabad around 450 blind workers of the National Blind Peoples' Union (NFB) work in factories. They don't receive the minimum wage - so they went on strike.

3) Theory and Practice - Contributions for the Movement

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