People's Democracy

(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

Vol. XXIX

No. 34

August 21, 2005

REVERSE ANTI-EMPLOYMENT POLICIES

 

CPI(M) Demands Jobs For All

 

TO INTENSIFY THE STRUGGLE FOR THE DEMAND OF GUARANTEED EMPLOYMENT, THE CPI(M) IS ORGANISING A NATIONWIDE CAMPAIGN, WHICH WILL HIGHLIGHT THE IMPORTANT ISSUES INVOLVING EMPLOYMENT.

 

THE Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of the UPA government contains an assurance to provide at least 100 days of employment to one member of every family in rural and urban India. Although this falls short of the demand for the right to work for all, the CPI (M) has supported and demanded its speedy implementation as a step to bring some relief in the backdrop of growing unemployment, a fallout of the mindless pursuit of the neo-liberal policies by the NDA regime. The Parliament is soon expected to enact the Rural Employment Guarantee (REG) Act. It is essential for people to be aware of their rights contained in the Act and to struggle to implement it after its adoption. Urgent initiatives are also required for a legislation to provide job guarantees for the urban unemployed as promised by the UPA government in of CMP.

 

THE REG ACT THE ROLE OF THE LEFT

 

The promise of an Employment Guarantee Act is a significant feature of the CMP, which marked a change from the policies of the NDA government. The recognition by the UPA government that the State has a responsibility towards providing jobs to the unemployed is indeed a welcome move. However, efforts from within the government as well as outside has been made to scuttle the enactment of Employment Guarantee Act since its inception. After much delay a Rural Employment Guarantee Bill was placed in the Parliament, which had severely diluted the provisions of the job guarantee. The CPI(M) along with the Left Parties, concerned organisations and individuals forcefully argued against the loopholes in the Bill like the absence of a time-bound plan of implementation across the country, lack of universal entitlement to the job guarantee, no commitment to pay minimum wages, no safeguards against exclusion of women, weak provision for unemployment allowance etc. It was also argued that the financial responsibility for the implementation of the Act must be taken by the Central government and should not be passed on to the States.

 

The concerted efforts by the Left and other progressive organisations have ensured that the UPA government fulfills this crucial commitment made in the CMP, despite many rightwing ideologues, including those within the government, advocating for its abandonment. The need of the hour is to make the rural poor and unemployed aware of their rights and entitlements as envisaged in the Act so that it does not remain merely on paper. Moreover, vigilance is required to ensure that the employment programme is not wrecked due to corruption and insensitivity of the Administration.

 

GROWING UNEMPLOYMENT

The Planning Commission has recently undertaken a Mid-term Appraisal (MTA) of the Tenth Plan (2002-2007). The 51st meeting of the National Development Council held in June 2005 at New Delhi approved the MTA document which states that “providing ‘gainful and high quality employment at least to additions to the labour force’ is one of the monitorable targets of the Tenth Five Year Plan”. The Tenth Plan envisaged the creation of 50 million new employment opportunities over the Plan period (5 crore jobs at the rate of 1 crore per year), against a total addition to the labour force of 35 million persons. The Tenth Plan so far has proved to be a total failure with regard to this stated objective. The MTA document admits, “The employment situation in the economy presents a serious problem. The MTA projections... suggest that the unemployment rate for the economy as a whole.. would have increased from 8.87 per cent in the base year 2001-02 to 9.11 per cent in 2004-05... [This] implies that total employment increased slower than labour force growth.” During the first three years of the Tenth Plan, employment has grown at a rate of 1.71 per cent per annum against a growth in the labour force of 1.80 per cent per annum. Inspite of this dismal record, the MTA of the Tenth Plan does not reflect any significant rethinking in the Planning Commission on the trajectory of neo-liberal reforms, which was pursued by the NDA government.

“JOB LOSS” GROWTH

 

While liberalisation was widely viewed earlier as leading to the phenomenon of “jobless growth”, the situation has further worsened today with jobs being actually lost in absolute terms — in other words from “jobless growth” we have moved to an era of “jobloss growth”. The MTA document admits “The data on employment in the organised sector presents an even more disturbing picture showing a decline in absolute employment between 2001 and 2003 in both the public sector and the private sector.” Employment in the organised sector has come down from 277.89 lakh in 2001 to 270 lakh in 2003, a drop of 7.89 lakh in just three years.

 

The organised sector jobs in the public sector have come down drastically on account of the cut in public investment and the ban on recruitment in government services. Vacancies in government posts are not only not being filled, posts are actually being abolished with the target of abolition of 66,000 posts a year in the Central government services set by the erstwhile NDA regime being ruthlessly implemented. It is estimated that since the process of neo-liberal policies have been implemented there has been a loss of around 10 lakh jobs in the Central government sector which includes abolition of around 7 lakh posts and unfilled vacancies in around 3 to 4 lakh posts. There are an additional 15 lakh posts in state government services which have remained vacant. Apart from aggravating the unemployment situation this policy has had a direct impact on the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes employment as it has meant a cut in jobs reserved for these sections.

 

At the same time jobs in the private sector are also going down. According to the MTA whereas in 2001 there were 86.52 lakh employed in the private sector it came down to 84.21 lakh in 2003. The Economic Survey 2004-05 notes that 4.08 crore jobseekers were registered with the employment exchanges across the country as on September 2004, 70 per cent of which were educated (10th standard and above) and 26 per cent were women. Only 1.03 lakh placements were effected by the employment exchanges at the all-India level during January-September 2004.

 

POOR ALTERNATIVE

The manufacturing sector has failed to develop as the engine of employment growth in the Indian economy. Employment growth in the small-scale industries, which generate most of the employment in the manufacturing sector, continues to remain at around 4 per cent (Economic Survey 2004-2005). There are over 10 lakh closed sick units, which have thrown lakhs of workers out of jobs. In the absence of significant employment growth in manufacturing, it is the services sector that accounts for the major share of non-agricultural employment. It is often claimed that the IT sector, which has indeed witnessed some expansion in the recent past, would absorb the pool of unemployed youth. It needs to be realised that IT sector jobs are open only to the educated youth and that too for those who have specific skills like computer training and spoken English, which can only be acquired by a relatively small proportion of the population. Moreover, the working conditions in most IT firms are highly unsatisfactory, characterised by job insecurity and a high attrition rate. In any case the number of jobs being created in the IT sector do not compensate for the much larger number of jobs lost in the government and Public sector.

 

Within the Services sector, unorganised retail trade account for the largest share of employment. The Economic Census of 1998 (the latest available till date) had shown that within the non-agricultural activities, maximum employment growth was witnessed in retail trade. Given the lack of opportunities in the already overcrowded agriculture sector and the stagnating manufacturing sector millions are virtually forced into setting up small retail outlets depending on their means, more out of circumstance rather than choice. Therefore it is a matter of grave concern that the UPA government is planning to open up the retail sector to FDI. Entry of foreign capital in retail trade would cause massive labour displacement and is likely to play havoc with the livelihood of millions. CPI (M) would oppose this resolutely.

 

PLIGHT OF THE RURAL WORKERS

Because of the lack of jobs in the organised sector, millions are forced to seek their source of livelihood in the unorganised sector where there is no guarantee of a fixed income or days of work. 64 per cent of the unorganised workers are employed in agriculture and mining. In fact, agriculture accounts for over 55 per cent of total employment in the country while contributing to only 22 per cent of the GDP (Economic Survey 2004-2005). The crisis in agriculture has had a devastating effect on the army of agricultural workers who are in acute distress because of the decrease in workdays in agriculture and no commensurate increase in non-agricultural work in rural areas. Wages have also come down over the past decade. At the same time a large number of farmers who have been caught in a debt trap because of the high prices of inputs, have committed suicide reflecting the depth of the crisis. While the Rural Employment Guarantee Act can provide some relief, the continuing neglect of agriculture in terms of inadequate public investment, drying up of institutional credit and lack of protection from the vagaries of the market, would impede any improvement of the rural employment scenario and the condition of the peasants. This reflects the urgency for an alternative set of policies. The basis of such an alternative must be to provide the basic resource of land to the vast mass of the landless in the country through a programme of land reform.

 

PROTECTING TRADITIONAL INDUSTRIES

Traditional industries like handloom, bidi, coir, cashew etc., which provide work and incomes to millions are in deep crisis as a result of the misdirected policies of successive Central governments, which instead of protecting these industries have virtually destroyed them. There is an urgent need for extending protection to these industries in order to defend the livelihood of the dependant families.

 

SELF-EMPLOYMENT SCHEMES

Given the fact that a large proportion of the rural as well as the urban population is self-employed, the self-employment schemes of the government can play an important role in employment generation. However, the allocations to these schemes like the Swarna Jayanthi Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY) are so meager that they fail to make any significant impact and remain limited to a small section of beneficiaries. While the total allocation for SGSY in 1999-2000 (when the scheme started) was Rs 1961.97 crore, by 2003-2004 the Central government had cut it down to Rs. 1233.51 crores. The situation vis-ŕ-vis the Swarna Jayanthi Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SSRY) meant for the urban areas is even worse. A ridiculously low allocation of Rs 158 crore in 1998-99 was further cut down to just Rs 100.74 crore in 2003-04. Considering the enormity of urban unemployment, this paltry allocation does not even touch the fringe of the problem.

 

Self-employment is closely linked to the availability of credit and access to markets. In both spheres it is only the corporate sector and well-to-do sections that corner all benefits today. It is almost impossible for the unemployed youth from poorer sections to get credit on easy terms. Self-employed artisans, mainly belonging to oppressed castes, also have very little access to credit from financial institutions. There is therefore a need to expand the scope of the self-employment schemes in a big way and ensure access to credit is not denied to the unemployed.

 

IMPACT ON WOMEN

The employment growth rate for women has come down drastically to less than 2 per cent in the 1990s compared to around 8 per cent in the previous decade. The last large sample survey (NSS 55th Round, 1999-2000) found that overall unemployment remained higher among women compared to men although more women had got employment than men in certain sectors. Women are preferred over men in short-duration jobs in the urban unorganised sector as casual workers, because female labour is considered to be cheaper and more ‘flexible’— in other words easier to exploit. However, women constituted only 18.4 per cent of those employed in the organised sector in 2003 (Economic Survey, 2004-2005). Therefore, as far as the relatively secure organised sector jobs are concerned, women continue to be denied equal opportunities. While the creation of a much higher number of quality jobs in the organised sector is required to bring about an overall improvement in the living standards of the masses, it is also important to ensure a greater proportion of women in organised sector employment.

 

Employment patterns have also undergone changes under the process of liberalisation. Permanent jobs are being casualised and contractualised on a massive scale, with big companies converting work hitherto done within factories into homebased work. In this growing sector where women form the main labour force, while the manufacturer cuts down on infrastructural costs, workers subsidise the production process and work at low piece rates with no guarantees of income or work. The need for a comprehensive legislation for protecting the rights of the unorganised sector workers including home based workers and providing them with some social security needs to be underlined in this context.

 

HIGHER UNEMPLOYMENT AMONG DALITS

The rate of unemployment is discernibly higher among dalits. Majority of the dalits live in rural India and 86 per cent of them are landless. Thus a much larger number of dalits compared to other sections are dependent on waged work.  61 per cent dalit households in rural India and 64 per cent in urban India are entirely dependent on waged work. If there are no jobs, their livelihood is affected. The unemployment rate among dalits is also higher than the other workers. A study based upon NSS 55th Round shows that the unemployment rate among dalits in urban areas is over 2 per cent higher than those in the general category. Moreover, the average daily wage earned by a dalit worker is Rs 23 less than the average wage earned by a non-SC worker.

 

Despite the Constitutionally guaranteed reservation in jobs, non-fulfillment of the reserved quota in the public sector continues till date. Moreover, the drive towards privatisation in the post-liberalisation period has further aggravated the situation because of the dismal record of the private sector in recruiting employees from the socially deprived sections. Affirmative action to ensure greater employment opportunities for the dalits in the private sector becomes relevant in this context. The UPA government can begin the process by making it mandatory for the privatised PSUs to continue with the reservation policy. However, it is only by expanding employment opportunities in the public sector, where the reservation policy exists, and by adopting a proactive approach towards fulfillment of the SC/ST quota that the discrimination against dalits in job opportunities can be successfully fought.

 

CONCLUSION

The UPA government has to realise that failure to reverse the trend of growing unemployment in the country would lead to the same fate as the BJP led-NDA. Unless the overall development strategy is reoriented towards greater employment generation in the different sectors of the economy, which would essentially entail much higher levels of public investment, unemployment would continue to grow unabated.

 

THE CPI(M) APPEALS TO THE TOILING MASSES OF OUR COUNTRY TO JOIN IN ITS EFFORTS TO BRING ABOUT SUCH A REORIENTATION IN THE GOVERNMENT’S ECONOMIC POLICIES.

 

Demands

 

 

Implement the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.!