Poor Labourers Toil For Over 12 Hours A Day To Feed India's Cheap Car Boom (Reuters)
FARIDABAD -- In a dingy factory in the sprawling industrial
hub of Manesar in northern India, a plastic moulding machine malfunctioned,
mangling Visheshwar Prasad Singh's right hand as he made parts for a supplier
to the country's major automakers. Singh was one of thousands of poor labourers, many
temporary, who toil for 12 hours a day making auto parts for as little as
$3-a-day to feed India's cheap car boom.
"I had no training to use the machine and was asked to
operate it one day," said the 51-year-old, who made parts for Ranee
Polymers, supplying to Honda Motor Co and Yamaha Motor Co. Doctors reattached his hand, but after 14 months and three
operations it remains near-paralysed. The plant manager at Ranee Polymers said the company did not
allow workers to operate machines without proper training. There were only one
to two accidents a year at the plant, which employs 250 people, R.K. Rana said.
Honda Cars India, which sources from Ranee, was not aware of
the accident as it did not occur when making parts for the company, a
spokeswoman said, adding that audits of incidents impacting safety or supplies
were conducted. Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India said a spokesman was not
available to comment. India Yamaha Motor did not respond.
Car makers such as Maruti Suzuki India and Hyundai Motor see
huge growth in India, set to become the world's third-largest auto market by
2020 as millions buy their first new car. Price tags can be as low as $3,000
for a new Tata Motors' Nano mini-car. India is also becoming a low-cost export hub for global car
makers such as General Motors and Ford Motor. As the sector expands, some of the work is sub-contracted
out to small factories operating on paper-thin margins, where poor contract
workers often have little or no access to safety equipment or health benefits,
industry experts say. "Undoubtedly, the workforce of suppliers, especially at
the bottom of the chain, are paying for the growth in the auto industry,"
said Puneet Gupta, associate director at consultant IHS Automotive. But with
more focus on quality and with India becoming an export hub working conditions
would improve, he added.
Car makers say they conduct audits at their main suppliers,
but it is not possible to check all the smaller companies that may be
outsourced work. A Maruti spokesman said the company conducts safety and
quality audits at its 400 direct suppliers and shares best shopfloor practices,
including those related to safety and working conditions. Ford India and Hyundai, which manufacture cars in the
southern state of Tamil Nadu, far from the Manesar hub, did not respond to an
email seeking comment.
LACK OF TRAINING, INSPECTIONS
A report by non-profit organisations Agrasar and Safe in
India on safeguarding workers in the auto hub of Gurgaon and Manesar, outside
Delhi, said most accidents occurred due to lack of training and safety
inspections and poor machine maintenance. The region - some 50 km (31 miles) south of the capital and
home to top car maker Maruti Suzuki along with hundreds of small factories -
employs 80,000 workers, but there are only about 35 to 40 inspectors in total
to monitor all industries in the area.
A senior official in the state labour department said
inspections happened once a year, or when a worker reported an accident - the
leading cause of which was violations of safety rules such as having sensors or
guards on machines, he said. Every year, more than 1,000 workers in the auto hub, most
below 23 years of age, are injured seriously and lose their livelihoods, the
report said. "Factory owners train people for a day or two and get
them to operate machines. It is all about meeting targets," said Prerit
Rana, founder of Agrasar, that helps rehabilitate injured workers.
POOR WORKING CONDITIONS
The village of Mujesar in Faridabad, south of Delhi, is a
labyrinth of auto part workshops, many operating in residential areas where
most manufacturing is banned. In one of the hole-in-the-wall workshops, made up
of two small rooms with a window the size of a computer screen for ventilation,
Reet Lal coats metal parts with anti-rust chemicals, earning him 8,500 rupees
($125) a month. With a glove only in one hand and no mask, Lal endures
nauseating smells for 12 hours a day to complete work outsourced by a firm
whose website says it makes parts for Maruti, Tata Motors and GM.
A Tata Motors spokeswoman said it no longer sources from the
supplier due to poor quality of products. GM India said it did not source parts
from that supplier. Kamala, a 30-year-old worker at another small workshop in
Faridabad, spends hours on a wooden stool labouring over a rusted drilling
machine. "My life is hell," said Kamala, a mother-of-two
who spends part of about $2.50 she earns a day to treat chronic backache.
"I hope my children don't have to go through the same."
