Globalisation and women in India

by Brinda Karat

In a significant development, women's organisations around the world 
launched a campaign on International Women's Day this year against poverty 
and violence in the context of policies of structural adjustment and 
imperialist driven globalisation. Included in this very broad mobilisation 
are organisations representing different trends in women's movements.

The campaign which includes a global signature campaign against the present 
unequal economic order addressed to the United Nations, culminating in the 
march on October 17 at the offices of the new world trimurti [Hindu trinity 
— Ed.] — the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO in Washington and their 
branches in other countries. In India the campaign has been joined by over 
250 women's organisations.

Such a wide response is testimony to the increasing evidence and experience 
that globalisation has had an adverse impact on women, strengthening 
existing exploitative and patriarchal structures.

Industrial development in India which has been highly skewered and with a 
narrow base has provided employment only to a small proportion of India's 
people.

There are about 26 million persons in the organised sector, the large 
majority of whom are employed in the government or semi-government or 
public sector.

Women form less than 10 per cent of the organised sector workforce.

Approximately 96 per cent of the female workforce is in the unorganised 
sector mainly agriculture and agriculture related work. The 1991 census 
calculates 55 million women are main workers of whom 28 million are 
agricultural workers.

Will jobs increase?

In the '80s, the rate of growth of employment in the organised sector was 
around eight per cent. This has come down to below two per cent in the 
'90s.

The government both at the centre and in the states was and is the main 
employer of women.

However a crucial condition of [IMF/WB] structural adjustment programs 
(SAPs) is the retreat of government and allowing the market free play.

In the decade of the '90s there was a virtual freeze in recruitment in the 
government sector including in schools and hospitals where women had got 
some employment as teachers or nurses.

In government offices, in banks, in public sector undertakings there is no 
fresh employment. On the contrary the move towards privatisation has put in 
jeopardy even existing jobs.

In the decade of the '80s as part of poverty alleviation programs the 
Central government schemes had included recruitment of lakhs [hundreds of 
thousands] of women as anganwadi workers, as village health workers and so 
on.

There have been sustained protests at the conditions of work and the levels 
of exploitation of this section of working women, however, far from 
improving the conditions of work, the government is severely cutting back 
on all these programs.

Another reason for women's unemployment is the big loss of jobs due to 
industrial sickness and closure of over six lakh factories.

It is said that liberalisation will lead to more jobs for women. It is true 
that there has been an increase in women's employment in some sectors like 
electronics, pharmaceuticals, computer factories, gem cutting, and in some 
sectors of garment.

Much of the new employment is in the export-oriented zones. This 
employment, linked to as it is to demands in the global markets, is very 
insecure.

In Tiruppur for example, which is known as the biggest hosiery centre in 
the entire region, thousands of young women have lost their jobs because of 
lack of orders.

The export processing zones (EPZs) are in any case virtual fortresses where 
the labour force is under constant scrutiny to prevent trade union 
activity.

Women workers are discouraged from spending time with each other, even 
during breaks.

Young single women are preferred by employers as they do not have to pay 
maternity benefits. They are more vulnerable and are available for long 
hours of overtime work.

Prisoners

There is a telling example of a meat processing factory in a new developing 
industrial area in Ghhaziabad where women from Kerala were literally locked 
up by their employer, not allowed out even during the lunch break or after 
working hours.

Dingy quarters had been provided within the premises and these women were 
working for 12 to 14 hours a day.

In spite of our efforts we were unable to unionise the women because every 
time a woman worker was seen speaking to an "outsider" she was threatened 
with job dismissal or actually dismissed.

Another area where there has been some increase in work is in the urban 
area of service industries like in hotels, travel services, tourist 
agencies, offices of multi-national corporations (MNCs).

A section of urban educated women has benefited through better employment 
opportunities in the service sector including the so-called glamour 
industries, and potential in the IT sector.

The employment opportunities created have not however been substantial 
enough to cover the loss of jobs through mechanisation on the one hand and 
cuts in government initiated employment on the other.

Conditions deteriorated

The terms and conditions of employment have worsened with the government 
itself giving the lead.

In the name of cutting costs the government has not only reduced the number 
of workers but also changed the nature of work agreements.

In other words, jobs of a permanent character are being given out on 
contract or workers are being hired on a daily or casual basis.

This has grave implications not only for job security, but also directly 
reduces the income and the bargaining capacity of the worker.

In one department in Kerala, the central government has refused to 
regularise the work of sweepers in some of the offices, who are mainly 
women.

Instead they are handed over forms in which there is a column to indicate 
what wage they are prepared to work for. The woman who quotes the lowest 
daily wage gets the job!

The government then says that the women have voluntarily given up their 
demand for the statutory minimum wage because, in any case, their work is 
only supplementary for family survival.

Data from the national sample surveys show that the proportion of causal 
workers in the total female workforce rose from 41 per cent in 1990-91 to 
45.3 per cent in 1993 to 1994.

The proportion of regular workers fell from 4.5 per cent to 3.4 per cent 
over the same period.

Homebased work

In many industries including government industries some work is farmed out 
to women in homebased work.

In theory this would appear to be beneficial to women. But the reality is 
that the woman ends up subsidising the employer through bearing all 
infrastructural costs such as electricity, worksite, sometimes even raw 
materials, and then getting paid a pittance for the work.

The rates of homebased workers are shamefully and dismally low.

It is shameful that the Government initially refused to sign the ILO 
protocol for homebased workers and when it finally did, it refused to 
implement it through adoption of appropriate legislation.

In agriculture

The impact of new agricultural policies on agricultural workers has been 
devastating. It would be no exaggeration to say that it is this section of 
the workforce, and more particularly the agricultural woman worker, who 
today is the worst affected by SAPs.

In a nutshell SAPs, by encouraging export-driven production has led to a 
switch in cash crop production, which combined with processes of 
mechanisation has led to a decrease in workdays available in agriculture.

This squeeze in agricultural employment has seen a big migration of workers 
from rural to urban areas.

One direct impact of SAPs in the rural areas is the increase in the number 
of female headed families dependent on the female's income.

According to the available data, women constitute 32 per cent of the labour 
force in the preparatory work before cultivation, 76 per cent of sowing 
seeds, 90 per cent for transplanting, 82 per cent in transporting crops 
from the fields, 100 per cent in traditional food processing and 69 per 
cent in dairying.

A survey by the Agricultural Workers' Union in Andhra Pradesh, for example, 
found that employers preferred women because they were more industrious, 
worked without breaks and could be hired at one third to 50 per cent less 
wages than men.

A study done in Thiravrur by AIDWA [women's organisation] (earlier part of 
Thanjavur district — the rice bowl of Tamil Nadu) showed that farmers have 
switched over from cultivating paddy to growing gherkins for the markets in 
the USA.

The initial switch over by a few farmers forced the others to grow gherkins 
as the high use of pesticides makes the neighbouring farms saline.

Sample studies conducted by AIDWA in several states show that women workers 
are earning one-third to three-fourths less than men in agricultural work. 

The trend of women replacing men is at a distress level, indicating further 
poverty, not increased or expanded employment. Women work more for less.

The second crucial impact on agricultural workers is the scrapping of the 
agenda of land reform and land distribution.

Women have no land rights in most parts of India. Their relationship to 
land is usually mediated through male members of the family.

The present agricultural policy speaks of land consolidation, not land 
distribution. Consolidation means setting up of big farms in the private 
sector.

In many states, commonly held property like panchayat [local government] 
land is also being leased to commercial interests, thus depriving the 
landless poor of access to it even for fodder of fuel purposes.

Increasing poverty — islands of wealth

The implementation of SAPs in the last decade has led to an increase in 70 
million people below the poverty line. A large number of these families 
would headed by a female, and a large section of them would be women and 
children.

For sheer survival more and more women are out looking for work.

The greatest impact of SAPs is the proletarisation of the female workforce 
— huge numbers of women searching for work on any terms and at any price.

At the other end of the spectrum are women who, as members of big business 
families or of the new rich, are the greatest proponents of liberalisation.

They are worlds apart.

They always were. But in the globalised world, these differentiations and 
the in equalities are even more gross because of the increasing gap between 
the rich and the poor.

Women's movements for equality have thus to greatly intensify their 
struggles against globalisation and its negative impact on women.

* * *

People's Democracy August 6, 2000 (abridged)