2011

Society for Labour and Development

SLD Board and Staff

FIRST SLD RETREAT

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First Retreat

Society for Labour and Development2011

Inception of the SLDThe Society for Labour and Development, founded in 2006, had its first retreat in 2011. SLD’s goals for the Retreat were to take stock of the work that has been done since SLD became operational four years back.

The SLD was founded with the vision of being a labour support organisation for workers and workers’ organisations in an era of aggressive attacks against the working class and socially disenfranchised communities. Its leadership has had long experiences with social movements and cultural work in India and the United States. The SLD’s values were rooted within the framework of mass based social movements and of internationalist movements led by oppressed people everywhere. The SLD

believes in supporting grassroots struggles locally, building alliances in the Global South, and engaging with Global North in non-patronising solidarity work to build the power of working class movements keeping in mind the diversity of the working class. The SLD believes in affirmative inclusion of people from vulnerable communities at all levels of its operation.

SLD began in an unconventional way in 2006. Its founding was a low-key affair and its work began without much fanfare. The idea was not to declare a vision, mission, structure, program plan – the paraphernalia expected of an NGO, but rather, to have a broad idea and let the necessary organisational elements be developed through concrete work grounded in

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the grassroots. In other words, see what is possible before declaring it to be so.

This approach is not without problems – for the last four years, we have been asked for the various organisational paraphernalia and we have responded as best as we could and as honestly as we could, at any given time. Within the SLD itself, we debated, consulted and joked about this matter – all this adding meaningfulconfusion and rich flavours to our growth. The founders were convinced that at some point, we would know that the time has come to pin down the organisational elements and paraphernalia and put it out in the public in some consistent way.

Well, the time came in 2011, four years later –SLD’s work sought to express the vision that fuelled it and felt the need to articulate programs. The organisation needed it. It was important to note, however, that in one area we did need to develop policies quite early in our growth – was in the matter of staff, finance and administration. There was a reason for this – it is our deep-seated commitment to develop a democratic and principled environment for committed people because they are SLD’s most valued resources; and our determination to have transparency and clean governance.

Retreat Process

The SLD has gathered many friends and supporters over the four years and we wanted to learn from them and also discuss with them our work. The SLD Board and Staff arecommitted and passionate and would want to be intimately involved as the first architects of institutional elements.

The retreat process involved all the people above and was conducted through two separate “retreats” spread over two months. A detailed report of all the discussions would be laborious and in print, lose its exuberance. Yet, not to capture anything at all would make us lose our sense of history.

As one participant at the first retreat said, “This is our first retreat, where we look forward to a consolidation of the work we have been doing. We decided to give a loose structure to the two-day program, and by the end of the second day, we hope to have more clarity, a vision.”

The first retreat was composed of Board with program director level staff, activists and intellectuals who have worked with the SLD in the past. The goal of this retreat was to learn from our supporters and advisors about their views about the world and India and to seek their suggestions for the vision and growth ofSLD and future areas of work.

The second retreat was composed of SLD staff and some of the Governing Board who are involved in program work. The goal of this retreat was to build the spirit of SLD’s diverseteam, to develop SLD’s vision and mission, and its program plans.

New LearningsWe invited different organisations to present their knowledge and work at the retreat so that it could enrich our learning. One of these participating organisations was the HazardsCentre. They gave a presentation on the JNNURM (Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission) and a short history and evolution of land use and its development in Delhi.

We asked Nirantar to present on adult education – concepts of Shikshaa and

Sakshartaa, edcuation / educated, literacy / capacity to apply knowledge, use of visuals and context based learning.

We invited Carsten Krinn from the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation. Carsten has done research on political education in political parties in Germany. He talked about elements that can inform political education.

Ventkatish Ramakrishnan, a senior journalist presented on policy, the poor and the working class as well as positive legislation .

We watched Burma VJ – which is a fascinating documentary on the use of accessible and cheap technology to document peoples’ struggles. The film was shot in the context of repressive military junta’s rule Myanmar, to let the communities and the world know the situation inside the country.

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Potential Growth AreasThe SLD needs to develop new areas of work and deepen existing areas in the light of the, deteriorating conditions of workers and marginalized people, as a consequence of a weak public policy framework and blatant impunity of the private sector’s violations of law and human rights. The SLD needs to keep

centre stage today’s concerns that shape the SLD’s constituency.

The constituency most spoken about was the working class in Gurgaon migrating from states such as and Bihar, Eastern UP, and others. The phenomenon of migration is a deeply

influential experience resulting in feelings of uprootedness, loss of community, loss of identity and citizenship, insecurity, and dreams and aspirations in a new place and longing for the old. The realities of migrant workers’experiences in their destination places thwart and inspire, strike fear and create conditions for boldness.

India’s cities are changing, organization of work and production are transforming, and the definition of ‘worker’ and working class’ shifting. The destination places are newly industrialized areas, promoting industry and foreign investment, and yet lacking in basic human rights and essential services. Women

and children suffer the most, as always. The systemic violence against the working class through a nexus between police, goondas, industry, and ‘city planners’ conspire to drive this population onto the brink of crisis everyday.

Urban development emerged as a key area of work that the SLD would need to develop. The SLD would need to learn about key programs like JNNURM and look into its application of specific projects, amenities and areas, forinstance, in Gurgaon, and look at how it is evolving. It is important to look at one or all ofthe three broad areas: amenities that have come up in different areas as part of the public-

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private partnerships, locations (picking up specific areas where there are public-private partnership projects), and projects (picking up the projects themselves).

Through community meetings, the SLD can understand the problems, document them, and build micro level interventions. The SLD could do a social mapping, needs assessment, and develop a road map for evidence-based advocacy. The SLD would need to work to improve the living conditions of the workersthrough proper implementation of laws, and building a social consensus on best practices.

The use of media by SLD could be more strategic. For example, SLD could use mediasources to help understand, gather information, highlight, and investigate difficult issues. The SLD could use information technology to create open and far-reaching discussion forums, and generate grassroots documentation that could inform discussions.

The SLD might play the valuable role of a monitoring organization that studies proposed legislations, helps in oversight to prevent anti-worker clauses in laws, proposes pro-worker laws, keeping in mind the impact on women

and children. The SLD would need to understand and raise awareness about initiatives of the government such as the Universal Identification (UID) or ‘Adhaar’ and its implications for vulnerable communities in Gurgaon. The SLD could also develop critiques of rights that have been given legal status and which in reality suffer from lack ofimplementation: in services such as health and education. The SLD should continue building its capacity for use of RTI.

The SLD wound need to protect workers’ interests in legislations and policies such as UID, RTE, Sexual Harassment laws, Migrant workers Act, Right to food, JNNURM. The right to education act as it exists today would promote the fallacy that the ignorant are responsible for spreading ignorance; the SLD can associate with other likeminded organizations to evolve a campaign to help strengthen RTE from itspresent form. SLD would develop an informal Education Centre with unique characteristics and present it as a model for informal vocational education and training.

The SLD could also explore creating alternatives in areas such as for livelihood and opportunities for jobs.

THEMATIC TALK: URBAN DEVELOPMENT

The talk was based on the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) – Phase 1, funded by Asian Development Bank, and started in the year 2005, to end in 2012. JNNURM Phase 2 is soon to begin withWorld Bank funding. The project started in 63 of the metro cities and is now extended to other small and medium towns. Various small workshops and discussions were conducted in different towns and cities, followed by a mid-term review of the mission to come up with a people’s evaluation of the government program. JNNURM is exemplar of how the centre puts forward a mission which then begins to steer how the State rules, where money is used in a sense to non-democratize a federal structure. The project cannot be seen in isolation, as it is seen to be sharing a genealogy with many other government programs and missions like National Slum Development Program (NSDP), Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojna (VAMBAY), Swarna JayantiShahri Rozgar Yojna (SJSRY), all linked to World bank/ADB/ IMF, with similar patterns embodied in the plan.

Infrastructure Development and Basic Services for the Urban Poor (BSUP) were the two concerns that the JNNURM project sought to address. The polarization in thinking reflects clearly in the monetary allocation proposed by the government, which said that 25% of the total money would go to the urban poor and 75% would go into infrastructure. The former comes under the Ministry of Urban Development and the latter under the Ministry of Urban Poverty Alleviation and Housing, two Ministries that do not work in tandem. The linkage is clearly the public-private partnership in urban infrastructure, which is based on three fundamental premises of National economic policies, viz1. Government has no money, and therefore private investments must come in.2. They can come in only if there are investor friendly policies for growth to take place.3. When the growth takes place, eventually the partnership will brittle down.

What would be the first three steps to intervene in the issue of development of the poor? Research on the issues that they consider to be important would be the first step. Secondly, a case-by-case research to begin with. There is no macro framework of intervention. The micro-studies in turn when put together will give us a macro picture, based on which we could develop alternate methods and models for intervention.The idea of ‘city of production’ shifting to ‘city of investment’: This means that there’s a category shift, policy shift, whereby the emphasis is not on the production. The policy is devised in order to enhance the investment. The core motivation here is investment and not production.

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THEMATIC TALK: POLITICAL EDUCATION

What does education mean in a Marxist framework? Why can political education be helpful? Whom to educate, how to educate? The socialist movement has always been very connected with educational movement right from the period of Enlightenment. For Marx and Engels, human beings produce and reproduce. While producing and reproducing life, we develop our own ideas and conceptions.

It’s the daily life and the people around them that determines and teaches human beings how we learn and what we learn. Learning is an ongoing and comprehensive experience. In a Marxist framework, the bourgeois education lulls the people, silences the people, creating a situation which doesn’t allow them to revolt. For any radical transformation project, people and their thoughts ought to be ‘all-sided’. Our understanding cannot be one-sided or one-dimensional. The bourgeois educational process is one-sided.

How do we handle this contradiction for a transformed society? Marx talks about human practice. In the thesis of Feuerbach, he says that it is not only about changing of circumstances, but it’s also about self-changing. Transforming of oneself is the first step. This in itself is an emancipatory process.

Now who designs the pedagogy? Who handles the media network? Who checks the amount and quality of information that comes to us through educational institutions?

It is most important that we do not understand or perceive education or schooling as a singular project. It is a process, it is a whole system.

For SLD, it has to be in terms of four groups, and four kinds of education for each of them:1. The SLD activists who need a particular kind of education, training,2. Labour Leaders who will need a different kind of education, regarding say the minimum wages, workers’ rights etc., a) activists/militants and b) ordinary members,3. Co-workers and the Families of co-workers,4. Public – education of this category becomes important as the public needs to be aware of the kind of issues that we are talking about.

We should actively embrace contradictions and try to find our position within them. For example, the contradiction between a partisanship, where on one side we need people who have certain opinion, but on the other, we need to be open to different ideas and listen to differences. There is urgent to pressure to act, but there is a simultaneous need to give emphasis on the content.

The moment we bring in a Marxist approach, we need to think about the basis of people. If we were to educate people, we need to first know them, for which we need to listen to them, know their socialization, know the language with which they would relate themselves. In other words, to educate the people, we need to know ‘the philosophy of the street’. There has to be what Gramsci calls a ‘coherence’ between what we say and how we say things.

In the neo liberal structure that we live in, we confront things/symbols that look like something that may not always be what we think them to be. The question of limited time is an issue when we talk of educating the workers. Thus it is most important that we make best of our time.

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Similarly the teachers; the question of who is the right teacher has much to do with what is the expected outcome. The tendency to patronize is another issue that often comes up, where the teacher thinks that s/he is the one to ‘enlighten’ the workers, to save the participants. Teaching methods is always secondary, and the process that is adopted is more important, where the success lies in touching the hearts of the people who take the education. We need to have in mind that it is and has to be a two-way process. These are undoubtedly crucial for an organization like SLD.

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THEMATIC TALK: LEGISLATION AND THE POOR

Before going into the issue of legislation and the poor, we would like to place on record that we have had a period of positive legislation during 2004-’09 , during the first tenure of UPA. (RTI, Forest Rights Act, NREGA etc.). However, much more needs to be done to ensure that there is no dilution in the provisions, and implementation is strengthened to ensure that the poor and marginalized can benefit from these legislations

There are instances of some States passing legislations to curb free speech and expression in the name of security. This creates an environment that causes further exploitation of the marginalized people as this prevents dissent and suppresses voices that support their cause. .

The new constitutional amendment seeks to make elementary education free and compulsory for children in the age group of 6 to 14 years, and proposes specifications on student-teacher ratio, on infrastructure etc. Prima facie the proposal is not feasible. Insistence on certain specifications could moreover affect the running of informal educational institutions which provide education to children who may otherwise go uneducated may have to be shut down. ‘Saksham’ in Nithari- Noida for instance is one such educational institution that admits street children, but runs with minimum facilities and infrastructure. Punishing parents has been one of the central issues in the States legislation, and the National Alliance for Fundamental Right to Education (NAFRE) claims that a large number of parents have indeed been persecuted. Similar thoughts were expressed recently by the Chief Minister of Rajasthan. He feels that facilities should be curtailed in villages with poor levels of enrolment and attendance in schools, in order to convey the government's displeasure. One can imagine from such views what manner of accountability the new Act is expected to promote.

Currently, 81 bills are pending with the two houses of parliament. We here focus on a few important bills related to corruption, taxation, and higher education.

The whistleblower protection bill which seeks to protect persons who disclose corrupt practices The judicial accountability bill which sets certain standards of conduct for judges of the high courts and

the Supreme Court, and provides a process for complaints, inquiry and removal of judges. A third bill that prohibits bribing of foreign officials There are four bills that regulate higher education. These include - one to set up education tribunals

that will try cases related to disputes in the sector; a second bill that bans capitation fees andprescribes disclosure standards in prospectuses; a third that mandates quality ratings for all university and college courses; and one that permits and regulates foreign universities.

The National Identification Authority bill creates a statutory authority for implementing the unique identity number (UID) system.

The government is also considering the introduction of the food security bill. The National Advisory Council has drafted a bill that strengthens the public distribution system and guarantees a certain amount of food grains to households. There is an alternative proposal to target food subsidy using the UID. It would be interesting to see which of these versions is piloted by the government.

Apart from these are the• Banking laws amendment • Pension fund bill• The forward markets amendment • Lokpal bill• National Food Security Bill, 2011• Prevention of torture bill

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• The amendment to the land acquisition law• The New Delhi Municipal Council (Amendment) Bill, 2010, related to urban restructuring• The Petroleum and Minerals Pipelines (Acquisition of Right of User in Land) Amendment Bill, 2010• The Constitution (110th Amendment) Bill, 2009 (Reserves for women 50% of seats in panchayat)• The Constitution (108th Amendment) Bill, 2008 (Reserves one-third seats for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies)• Emigration Management Bill 2011• The Inter State Migrant Workmen [Regulation of Employment & Conditions of Service] (Amendment) Bill, 2011

It is most important that we understand the legislations from the stage of their drafting itself as they may lead to restricting the mobility and freedom of the community that we work with. It could be that at the outset many of the legislations are appealing and harmless; nevertheless a detailed and in-depth analysis could show a different picture. For instance the Cash transfer Versus the Public Distribution System – for the labourer, the cash transfer system may seem to be much better than the public distribution system, but the actual operation of the systems would prove otherwise.

Vision and MissionWe brainstormed on Vision and MissionStatements / Phrases. These phrases were

further sculpted by the Drafting Committee and accepted by the SLD.

VISIONSLD का रहेगा सदैव यह यास मजदरू का हो जाग क, आ मिनभर, िनडर,

और खुश हाल समाज!SLD strives for a society where workers are aware, self-reliant, fearless and

live in dignity.

MISSIONहमारा उदे य है, मजदरू तथा उनके प रवार को सगं ठत करने म ,जाग क

बनाने म, म अिधकार व नाग रक अिधकार ा करने म, वा य, आवास,

प रवाहन, मनोरंजन, ी पु ष समानता, वासीपन तथा िश ा के े म

मजदरू के िलये एक जीवंत और खुश हाल वातावरण बनाने के िलये काय

करना !

SLD’s aim is to support organizations of workers and their families, to raise their awareness about labour and civil rights, to enable them to access such

rights, and to support them in creating a dynamic and dignified society where housing, environment, health, cultural enjoyment, gender equality,

migrant welfare and education for working class communities are respected.

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Reactions from the RetreatLearned about different programs

Gained knowledge about new thingsGot a sense of collective effort

Clear visionLoved the Games!

Liked for all of us staying over nightLiked the style

Experienced Personal vision linked to Organisational vision