meek-investor

This eminent and good friend has often remarked that I have turned into a socialist (even a communist) in my old age. He claims my writing in this blog is veering constantly to the left. Other readers of my blog ,might wonder, if this is left leaning then what will the true loony left be called. But I know I am going to get a mouthful from him for this post, which is admittedly leftwards tilting. On matters relating to labour and worker law, I have often argued that countries have brought excessive legislation defending the existing worker and making it expensive to employ any more.Who in his right mind will employ a worker in France, for example. All this misguided legislation only keeps out a large portion of the young out of the workforce. Companies need some flexibility to ramp their worforce up or down based on conditions of their business and marketplace. Minus this flexibility, no modern company is going to hire. But companies have gone to the other extreme and misused the flex...

The story that two garbage cleaners in New York were fined and forced to retire after being caught accepting a tip of $ 5 caught my eye.  Not for the reason you might think. This story would provoke hoots of laughter in my country where nothing happens in the public service without a gratuity.  Even in NY, this must be an incredulous story - every man and a dog demands tips shamelessly for just existing in the same space as you. But the real reason this story has prompted this post was buried somewhere in the middle.   The two garbage men apparently netted $100,000 each, including overtime. Granted that they had put in long years of service. Granted that they probably earned lots of overtime. But still a wage of $ 100,000 for a garbage collector shows everything that is wrong about the United States. No wonder they lose jobs by the droves to India and China. No wonder unemployment is a stubborn problem.   But this post is not to highlight the completely unreali...

If it wasn't so sad, it would have been a classic case study where everybody was at fault. The Marikana miners strike in South Africa is a disaster where every party - the miners, the company, the unions, the police and the government deserve censure for the way they have conducted themselves. Here is what happened. One of the platinum mines belonging to the mining giant Lonmin is in the Marikana area in South Africa. In early August there was a flash strike over pay demands. The situation escalated badly and resulted in a violent incident on 16th August when police firing resulted in 34 miners being  killed and 78 injured. Prior to this 2 police officers had also been killed. Since the infamous Sharpeville massacre in 1960, this was the worst violence in South Africa, and certainly the blackest day in the post apartheid era. The company Lonmin deserves some of the blame. Its workers are poor and live in shantytowns without any decent housing. Since 2001, the price of platinum ha...

Consider the following employee employer relationship. The post is set in an Indian context, but it could be true of virtually any developing country. There is no written contract of employment. The worker is paid below that statutory minimum wage. There is no Provident Fund or Employee State Insurance, both of which are statutorily mandated in India. There is no paid leave. Most often, there is no weekly off. Child labour is acceptable. Physical abuse is not unknown. Sexual abuse is ,alas, not rare. Verbal abuse is often. There is no training for the job. There are no rest breaks. The job is monotonous, repetitive, and physically taxing. There is hardly a word of praise or feedback. Biting criticism from the employer is a daily affair. The workers absent themselves at the drop of a hat. Attrition is enormous; the worker often just absconds or runs away. Coming on time is an alien concept. The worker tries her best to finish faster and with as less effort as possible - quality be damne...

Just imagine this. You earn a salary of $ 25m a year. And then you go on strike demanding improved wages. Believable ?? You better believe it. Kobe Bryant (arguably the best basketball player in the world, for those readers not familiar with sport), earns that salary, but is on strike from tonight. Actually not just Kobe. Every basketball player who plays in the NBA ( unsporting types - that's the National Basketball Association, which runs the League in the US of A.) The NBA is a private league. Players have formed a union and there is a collective bargaining agreement every few years. The last agreement expires today. Negotiations with owners of the teams has broken down. No deal; so there is a lock out. The team owners are losing money. The players claim they aren't getting enough money. Despite the wild popularity of the game. Unlike other American sports such as Football (the American variety) and Baseball, which have limited appeal outside the country, basketball  is wild...

Guess which country is this ? The decision on where a company should locate a new factory is made by the unions and the government. The company, which thought it could decide for itself,  is rapped on the knuckles for presuming this right. Where could this be in this day and age - North Korea ? Zimbabwe ? Libya ? Alas, none of these. It is actually the US of A. The company in question is Boeing. For long it has had factories in the Pacific NorthWest - in the states of Washington and Oregon. It now needs additional manufacturing capacity for making the Dreamliner - the new 787  series that is being launched worldwide.  It set up an additional factory in South Carolina. The unions representing the Washington and Oregon plant workers filed a complaint with the National Labour Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB upheld the complaint - Boeing was wrong to open a factory in South Carolina !! The case boggles the mind. Boeing did not shut down any factory or lay off any workers. On...

........ Nor any drop to drink, goes The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge. He could very well be describing the labour situation in India. It seems to be one of perennial shortage. How can this be ? After all, India is a land of 1.2 billion people. The unemployment rate is officially at 9.4 %, but we all know that the real number is much higher. This is because of seasonal employment in agriculture and unemployment outside the seasons. Underemployment is even higher - getting some job just to exist, but capable of doing much more. While India's growth is impressive in recent years, it has created nowhere near the number of new jobs required to cater to the number of people entering the job market every year. And India is a young country, not an ageing one. More and more people join the workforce each year.  The unemployment situation is so acute that the government runs a hugely expensive National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. And yet, ask any company what their bigges...

Jobs for life ?  A quaint and obsolete concept ? Not even dinosaurs would think of such an idea ; Right? Don't snigger. No less a company than Siemens has done just that in Germany . My first reaction was, of course, what on earth has Siemens done. Has it simply bowed to the pressure of the mighty German trade unions ? The power of trade unions in Germany is well known. The country has adopted a model for a cosy relationship between workers and managements. Confrontations, when they come, are often less intense than might be seen in other parts of the world. Wages are high. Its not easy to lay off workers.And yet Germany remains a massive industrial success; it remains the largest exporter in the world neck to neck with China.  The arguments for flexibility with work force are well known. But why has Siemens opted for giving jobs for life - and that too in high cost Germany ? There must some arguments on the other side of the debate as well. There surely are.   If we turn...

Readers of this blog may be forgiven for not being familiar with the late Dr Datta Samant. He was a fiery trade unionist in Bombay in the 1980s who changed the industrial relations scene in India. His style was extremely confrontational ; he specialized in making demands of 700% wage increases, going on strikes invariably and was prepared for an agreement only upwards of a 100% wage hike. The textile industry in Mumbai was virtually destroyed by him . A few workers benefited when managements caved in to his demands ; but on the whole most, and especially Bombay, lost. Not as dramatic, but something on those lines is happening in China. There has been a coordinated strike in Honda’s manufacturing plants in southern China demanding wage hikes. Honda increased wages by 24%. Foxconn, the company at the heart of the unfortunate suicides in its plant in Shenzhen , has increased wages by upwards of 30% to reportedly 100% for some. Guangdong Province, the factory to the world, increased its m...

The press coverage of the worker suicides at Foxconn is throwing open the debate on China’s challenges as it seeks to continue its economic miracle. If you have not followed the events, last week was the eleventh time this year that one of its workers , at its factory in Shenzhen, committed suicide by jumping from his dormitory. Li Hai was only 19 years old and had worked only 42 days in the factory before he died. Foxconn is a giant electronics assembling company. Taiwanese owned, its largest factory is in Shenzhen in China. The Shenzhen plant assembles phones for Apple, Nokia, etc etc. It is typical of the industrial might of China – the factory employs some 400,000 workers at its site in Shenzhen and they all live in the factory premises in large dormitories.Its a virtual city by itself. This is the model in China. Migrant workers come from the west to the coastal cities to work and factory complexes are in effect self contained townships. Foxconn is not typical – its huge. Most ot...

The right to strike work is one the basic rights of workers and is recognised in law in most countries. But should this right be unfettered – and is the right to strike as valid now as it was when the principle was first enshrined ? The right to strike was first recognised when the balance of power between employers and employees was heavily tilted towards the employer. The company could basically exploit workers as they pleased – a situation which is, alas, all too common even in present day China. Make people work in unsafe conditions, handle poisons, face serious risk of injury, withhold wages, employ children, take away passports / ID cards – these are the conditions that labour often found itself in the past, and still finds itself in , in some parts of the world. The only weapon that workers have to defend themselves is to organise themselves into a union and threaten strikes. But in many other parts of the world, the situation is very different now. Power is much more balanced ...

The capital of militant and inflexible labour is France. The title that Bengal held in the 70s and 80s seems to have been taken over by France. These are bad times everywhere in the world. France is not immune to the ill winds. Factory closures and job losses, are alas, everywhere. French workers have reacted to it, by contributing to a new word in the English language – "bossnapping” . Holding bosses hostage until their demands are met. What in India, is called ghereao. Now there is a report of the workers at a failed auto supplier threatening to blow up the factory unless the supplier’s customers – Peugeot and Renault – pay € 30,000 to each worker. This is a rather unique demand. They aren’t asking their own employer, for they know that their employer does not have the money. They are asking their employer’s customers ! Losing jobs is one of the most demeaning things that can happen to anyone. The anger is understandable. But the reaction will harm France for a generation to ...