“I’m in the garbage business. I clean up after you. I make your surroundings livable. I am the one who picks up what you left behind — used syringes, rotten vegetables, chocolate wrappers (which my child sucks), stinking sanitary napkins that you so carelessly throw away...

You can hardly bear to walk past me because of the stench but me, I am used to the stench. The odour nauseates me no more. The garbage van is my AC  office. I am almost a piece of garbage myself and yet, I get leered at, jeered at. Don’t tell my boss that I told you this — he will throw me out, just like you throw out garbage.”

These are the words, as near as I can translate, of the women who pick up garbage every day, day after day. These were told to me, by these women after much cajoling, during my walkathon with them early in the morning for more than a week in street after street across Bangalore.

The minute they saw me, a journo holding pen, paper and recorder, they clammed up. They know very well that a revelation of their woes means either a cut in a day’s salary or worse, no job.

Jyothi, Rajamma and Gangamma, all working in Subrahmanyanagara ward, chorus:

“We don’t have any problem. See those men in blue uniforms, ask them, they will tell you everything.”

Only after patient persuasion did the real tale of sorrow leak out. “Poverty and debt traps drive us. Maistris (supervisors) enroll us and they have a roll call every day twice. If we are absent, they cut Rs 65 per day. We get half-day leave on Wednesdays and Sundays and we work half-days on all festival days. We have no other leave. Even if we fall sick, our salary is cut. Rajamma narrates : “My husband has left me. I have three children to take care of. For my elder daughter’s marriage, I took loans from here and there and took leave for 25 days. I got only Rs 500 that month. But I am still managing to send my other two children to school. I have to travel every day by bus...there is no travel allowance. We don’t even have a place to eat or take rest..I eat on the footpath itself.”

Daily harassment
Shantamma of Kamalanagara ward dares to unfold hardships they face everyday: “See I sweep this road now. Just I’ve reached the dead end of the road, someone will have thrown plastic and papers. If the maistri comes now, he will allege that I’ve not swept the road and as punishment my day’s salary will be cut. He will mark me absent for today. Yesterday, three women emptied the garbage bin directly to the van. They were not aware that they should not have thrown the garbage there. But the maistri marked all the three as absent to punish them.” Narayana, son of a garbage worker in Gandhinagar ward, says:”I grew up on streets. I helped my mother collect corks and plastics. I even today remember her receiving scoldings from the house owners and her supervisors though she worked without eating a morsel till 2 pm. Somehow, I managed to study till 7th standard and later worked as office boy. But those children who can’t go to school will become garbage collectors — it passes from generation to generation.”

If they go by the rules, the contractor should appoint a woman to look after children if there are more than five children at a working place. However, this is never followed.

According to Muniyamma, once a photo of worker carrying her child in the waste ‘gaadi’ was published in a newspaper. Soon the woman was reprimanded.

However, maistris, who also work under contractors, face an uncertain future themselves and hence don’t want to speak at all.

These workers are unorganised. No protocol is followed either to appoint or to sack an employee. The employee’s life is dependent on the supervisor’s whims and fancies.

However, contractor in Jeevan Bhima Nagar, S N Balasubramaniy (Package no.23 - Jeevan Bhima Nagar) says: “As the service of these workers are essential they are given half-day leave on Wednesday and Sunday. Most of the workers are from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu and a few from Gulbarga. The locals will not come as they are shy to work where their relatives and friends can recognise them. Their basic salary is 2,200 per month. Of this 4.5 per cent ESI, 13.61 per cent PF will be given.”

Reality check
After a new tender was passed in April, these workers can now hope for some change in their pay scale. They will be given PF and ESI facilities.

Compared to the essential nature of their service, they are given minimum facilities. They will be given gloves and uniform, when they begin their career. Many of them don’t use the gloves as it slows down their work and also if the gloves get dirty, they will not get new ones. Gangamma of the Subrahmanyanagara ward has been wearing the same uniform for the past nine years. Muniyamma, a contract worker, said: "Our equipment consists of brooms, mumtis and a sickle and, for men, a spade." Many of them have fashioned glove-like gear out of plastics bags.

The workers are forced to handle waste, including decomposed animal bodies, with bare hands. This often results in skin infections.  Worm infestation, scabies, respiratory tract infection and Hepatitis B, to name a few, are diseases that inflict these garbage workers.

The government which runs volvo buses for the white collared, doesn’t even provide a van for these workers to commute, let alone a travel allowance.  Ironically, the BMP, which had spent around 16 lakh on a single machine that apparently ‘sweeps’ the road but is rusting unused, does not bother to provide better facilities to the workers.

With bare hands
The Contract Labour (Regulation & Abolition) Act, 1970, says that labourers should be given immunity from harm while doing their job. In case of garbage management, protective clothing and gears such as rubber gloves, coats and boots should be given.    

However, in reality, they work in almost bonded labour-like conditions. They are not provided with any social security benefits like medical compensation and pension.

They have no rest-rooms or canteens though the Contract Labour Act stipulates that these be provided. Also, the workers are denied weekly holidays and leave facilities, which are available to permanent workers. No medical aid or compensation is provided if a worker meets with accident while on the line of duty.

Taking advantage of the fact that most of the workers come from villages and are unlettered, the contractors have not issued them with written proof of employment. There is no fixed place or date for payment, and the workers do not receive wage slips, in most of the wards, though it is stipulated under the Contract Labour Act that they should.

Must not we pay some attention to these people? Can these workers dream of better future as William Blake says:

That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black.
And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he open'd the coffins and set them all free.