When the struggle for workers` rights on campus began in November 2006, the minimum wage was Rs 127.40. But the 15 workers who approached the JNU Students` Union (JNUSU) stated that they had been hired on only Rs 65 per day. Worse still, the contractor had dismissed them without any payment for demanding a five rupee increase.

What began with 15 construction workers soon spiralled into a campus-wide issue. Workers across the university—gardeners, safai karamcharis, cooks, helpers, lab attendants and library staff — contacted the student body with the complaint that they too received less than minimum wages. A survey revealed delayed payments, no overtime, caste abuse, and a total absence of worksite facilities. At the outset itself, it was clear that the issue was not that of minimum wages alone. Rather, it had to do with ensuring that those who cook, clean and build are given equal respect and dignity by the university.

As the struggle gained momentum, the liberal facade of the JNU administration crumbled. We saw how it positioned itself against labour and on the side of the contractors. The administration met each argument with the insistence that it was not the `Principal Employer` and that the contractors alone were responsible for the conditions of workers. At the same time, officials from the administration colluded with the contractors to threaten the workers, destroy their hutments or summarily remove them from their jobs.

The initial imperatives of struggle were such that the workers had to be supported against coercion and retrenchment. At the School of Physical Sciences worksite, the contractor shut work, rendering over 150 workers jobless. This was clear coercion, meant to expose the vulnerability of those who work on daily wages. Students and workers ran a community kitchen for over a month until the wages with arrears were paid. Payments of the service staff were also delayed by several weeks, leaving them with no money for food or rent. What also became clear was that the siphoning of public funds was taking place not only from workers` wages but also from material coasts, thereby severely undermining the quality of construction.

Eventually, we came to recognise the importance of various forms of documentation. This was particularly so given the fact that workers` testimonies, whether regarding payment or the number of days they had worked, were given no credence by the officialdom. In the worksites, there was a total absence of any kind of documentation. Workers possessed neither job cards nor identity cards. The literate workers were encouraged to maintain their own records; but in other cases, particularly when the jobber or contractor made them oscillate between different sites, the situation became quite difficult. There were no muster rolls at the construction sites and workers lacked wage slips and attendance records. When a muster roll was produced after much pressure, it contained several discrepancies: the names of many workers were missing or else there were incorrect accounts of their days of work. Workers in the library complained that when they signed their payment receipts, the wage columns were always left blank. Till date, no proof has been provided for the payments deducted for ESI/PF.

On 22 November 2006, JNUSU met the administration and extracted a number of commitments on the issue. Besides minimum wages, fixed days of payment and provision of worksite facilities, the students` union demanded that details of all work currently taking place in JNU, including estimates and names of contractors, be made available; that records of work and payment be made transparent so as to ensure accountability and check gross violations of workers rights; that muster rolls be issued and displayed on worksites and a copy to be made available on demand; that contractors be directed to maintain a register of workers employed at their sites as well as records of payments made of wages, advance and overtime.

To these demands, the university administration responded by saying, “Labour Commissioner, having the jurisdiction over the area, can ask for records and details from the contractor as well as impose fines and penalties for non-compliance of laws. As regards the contracts entered into by JNU the Contract Form contains the JNU Contractors` Labour Regulations and Clauses 19&20. Involvement of JNUSU in the contractual activities may not be possible to the extent sought.”

This was a classic case of official-speak, accompanied by an utter refusal to accept responsibility or provide any kind of documentation. It was also in complete opposition to the Contract Labour Act, which requires such documents to be made available at each worksite.

Faced with such a response, one of the decisions of the student body was to file an extensive RTI. In applications filed in January 2007, the union demanded details of a complete listing of all the constructions planned and undertaken in the period 2000-2007 relating to hostels, school buildings, libraries, cafeterias and boundary walls; copies of all contract agreements signed by JNU with the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) in the period 2000-2007; copies of all documents relating to the construction of the proposed School of Physical Sciences Building; copies of tender documents and other contracts filed between JNU and Vayudoot, Chase, Group 4, and any other company for proving services in the campus in the period 2000-2007; and copies of records of payments to these companies by JNU in this period and copies of records of wage payments made by these companies to their workers.

The response took over a month and the information that came was not wholly satisfactory. As far as the construction workers were concerned, the CPWD, the UP Jal Nigam, the JNU Engineering Department and their various sub-contractors gave only the most peremptory responses. Payment records given by contractors gave only total figures, with no indication that these sums had actually reached individual workers. There were also cases of `perfect contracting` such as the agreement signed between JNU and Group 4, which stood in stark contrast to the ground reality of guards suffering from overwork and exhaustion. What the RTI applications did provide, however, was a number of contracts signed by the university administration with various service providers, in which the university had accepted quotations at much less than the minimum wages.

By February 2007, the struggle took a different turn, as the administration cracked down on students protesting for the workers` rights. In the struggle against this crackdown, the contracts obtained through the RTI were an important `proof` that the administration was targeting student activists so as to distract attention from its own wilful violation of labour laws.

In the three years since its inception, the struggle for workers` rights has been successful to the extent of forcing the administration into forms of accountability that it had once refused to consider. There are so many laws that exist, from the Contract Labour Act to the Equal Remuneration Act, but all their provisions go unheeded under the new labour regime. The mere existence of a law is never enough. At each step, its provisions have to be fought for and the ruling dispensation has to be challenged.

This is also the case with the RTI. To use the RTI presumes that the struggle has 90 days at hand. Often, this is a long wait for a worker in the unorganised sector, who is retrenched in a matter of days. This is compounded by the fact that there is often a total lack of documentation to attest a worker`s claims. Even in a university like JNU, a student can file an RTI without much difficulty, but a worker who does so is branded a `troublemaker`. A more evolved administration also uses the RTI as a provision to stall, to let the struggle subside, to buy time. For instance, a muster roll is a document, which should be available at each worksite. But, repeatedly, it is said that it is not a public document and that to access it will require an RTI.

Over the last 15 years in JNU, each time a permanent employee retires, his or her place is filled by a worker on contract. Many workers who have spent years working, hoping for permanent employment, now find themselves reduced to temporary status. Such policy decisions have created a large workforce, working on depressed wages and in inadequate working conditions, in a state of permanent insecurity, teetering forever on the edge of joblessness. In the last year, attempts have been made to shift the initiative from a well-intentioned student body to a workers` union. But at the time of writing this article, the university administration has arbitrarily retrenched 72 workers who were at the forefront of the newly established JNU Sangharsheel Mazdoor Union.

Where issues of labour are concerned, the RTI provides information that is useful and enabling in the course of struggle. It is a tool in the struggle, but it is not a form of struggle in itself. It works best when used in consonance with other forms of agitation. It provides information that is useful to workers, but it does not provide a solution to their problems. Such a solution can come only with an end to contractualisation itself.