"YOU are not asked to work a 23-hour day, but the wage level leaves you little option. Every minute you are smashed, mentally and physically... A lot of the workers put me on a pedestal, with a conception of me as a leader.
SURESH GROVER was born in Nairohy in East Africa and came to Britain in 1965 when he was 11. His involvement in the Asian Socialist Forum in London persuaded him to visit India, where he recently spent six months working on the Bombay Docks.
D URING MY schooldays in Nelson, Lancashire, during skinhead period in the early "70s especially, Asians used to get beaten up very badly. There were ten Asian school, and afternoon one of us was beaten up. Every tenth day it would be my turn.
The comment they used to make was: He's an Indian. There are beggars in India. He can't fight.' They connected the misery of the people of the sub-continent with Britain's supposed strength. If poverty were no longer prevalent in India, if it came to be regarded country like the Soviet Union, I don't think there would be the same attitude to Asians living in Britain as there is now.
I've always felt this, and it was this idea which made me want to go to India. I wanted to find out for myself the situation on the docks, which had been discussed when I was in the Asian Socialist Forum in London.
I had read a lot about the docks industry. The question of working in India never frightened me because I had been working since 1971 in various factories, on night shifts, and so on. But with 50 million unemployed in India, obtaining a job wasn't easy.
There are two ways of getting a job on the docks in Bombay. First is to go through the Bombay Dock Labour Board, which is run by the government. If you're not the son of the manager, forget it. And then the oniy jobs the board gives are manual loading and unloading - which are looked down on in India because of the caste question. Only the very poor do manual Jobs.
The other way of getting jobs is from private firms which handle cargo. I managed to get a job with a stevedoring firm dealing with Soviet ships. Containerisation has just started in India, and I was offered a job as a container organiser, supervising the loading.
I was told the pay was 500 rupees a month about £30. That's higher than the average wage of a skilled worker. They promised regular hours, a letter of confirmation that I was employed, and more besides. It was all lies.
With a letter of employment I could have joined a union. I never received one. Instead of 500 rupees month. As for regular working a 22 or 23-hour day for three days in a row, then having eight or 16 hours off and then start over again. You are not asked to work for so long, but the wage level leaves you no option Many others are management has no intention of keeping.
To imagine what it's like working a whole day with only a couple of hours off, you also lave to appreciate the conditions of the job There are no canteen facilities, anywhere to wash, and no health and safety regulations. These facilities don't exist in the as a strong slums where many of the workers live, so there is no real demand for them at work.
To eat, you get a thali - rice, chapatis, and a couple of vegetables. It's a cheap meal, two or three rupees, but the quantity is very small -just sufficient for you to eat and feel hungry two hours later. For someone who hasn't lived in India it isn't easy to manage on it. And the hygienic level of the food is poor, because the people who make it are poor. The same oil is used for frying for a few months. You can't even get water when you're working, because you can't drink the water.
I fell ill with amoebic dysentry, thinned me down. I was 11 stone when I went over, and I lost 2.5 stone. The dynsentry really hampered me. I was so ill my knees would of the dock workers sleep containers. Many come from villages, leaving their wives behind, so that during a strike they take the opportunity to go home to their village. That happens in other industries, too. for those whose family is in Bombay, the men will rather earn an extra 20 rupees by staying on the docks than spend the time with their family. forced on them because of material need.
In India, the wife never asks anything she's not expected to. She's at home; she cooks and cleans tor her hushand discussion about there is a strike, she is not supposed to get involved.
At least 40 per cent of the 60,000 workers on the Bombay docks are not in unions. The most serious thing that affected me was that not only are the workers exploited by the management, but also by people who pretend to be their friends trade union leaders and politica activists. What I wanted to know was how I could contribute effectively so workers, who have never even dreamed of having a free day, strength.
Every minute you are smashed, mentally and physically. There are lepers, beggars; all the poverty you see haven't succeeded in tradition on a political or personal basis.
What kept me going was talking to dock workers all the time. In India, to be a supervisor regard them as cham cha — a stooge. But I weni out of my way to assist the workers on the job. The didn't exactly because was disgracing • supervisors A a corce ion or she an a leadedestal, with a conception of me as a leader. expected more than I could do, not realising strength. The Indian parliamentary, politics is based on this. 'Mahatma' in Mahatma Gandhi, for example, means 'near to god', and this idea of the leader runs through the Indian tradition. It means they accept what you say, which is a barrier to MEETING during the Bombay dock strike last April. Other photographs made promises which revolutionary politics no toilets, which in workers to make their That's - the non-unionised labourers. who There 1S no what happens at work. If and had self-organisation.
the docks; and relationship that these don't strike together. could realise their own completely artificial, ment's interests.
every day. The unions creating a militant like this the name action.
whole tradition of When there is a strike, workers, leader.
laughing. - views of the city.
In Bombay I was in a group which is sympathetic to the Fourth International and concerned. mainly with industrial issues, unionising workers and representing sacked workers in the courts. It runs a law centre.
Two of us worked on the docks. The idea was to discuss issues like health and safety, basic problems in the dock situation, and for own demands about them. We managed to talk to a lot of workers in section, the contract had seen no general improvements in their life in the past ten, twenty, years. That was the sector l was on. They were pissed off with the existing unions begun to realise the need We decided to produce a bulletin taking up workplace problems; how the slums related to importantly the between organised and unorganised sections, building links between them. They live in the same places and face the same problems. They live together but they The separation and oniv The unions openly receive money from management not to organise the casual labourers. Because of these deeds, it was necessary to create a force within the unions for the issue of unionisation to be taken up There has been industrial action on the docks, over the question of contract labour: over parity of wages on a national level; and parity of supervisors' wages. These initiatives But the biggest problem the dock workers face is inter-union rivalry, arising from the fact that the unions are linked to political parties Now that the Janata Party is in power, for example, the Congress Party's union will take That means that only certain sections will be on strike, ano tis accon will be canca D the union leaders essentially for manoevuring purposes rather than winning demands • there is no real attempt by the leadership to get the rank and file to discuss the demands and the action. This is not quite the same as in Britain, because if which could mobilise in a strike situation, discuss conditions in the shums. so on. The idea was that demands could be properly discussed, and fought for. A forum of discussion like that had never existed.
We had some successful meetings. where two or three hundred came along. And we weat along to meetings at which union leaders spoke We managed to gel nuckers. discussing how we could organise and so on. Then we decided to take up the question of my not getting paid the amount I was promised.
The reason I'd never asked was because 1 knew I would be sacked, but we decided to make an issue of it. It was a mistake We couldn't screen the people who were coming to the meetings, and one of them reported to management that we were setting up another union, which wasn't true. That would have confused the whole situation.
At first I was warned by management that I leader. Stupid causestions. They wanted to and become a Stupid accusations. know my nationality, which is British, and they threatened me with deportation! I started The next day I went back and asked for my money. They told me I was sacked, so there wa: a big fight in the manager's office. I argued that they couldn't sack me because they had never given me a letter of appointment in the first Unfortunately, they saw through this logic and that was it — I had to go That same night, goondas — that's a Hindi word for political gangster — had gone to th slums and visited the homes of some of th workers who were close to us. They slappe wives, broke a few cooking pots, and said there was to be no new union formed. We think the were sent by the unions There was a national docks strike at the time I left. last April. It was over bonuses, and the people we'd worked with raised the question of he demands and how the struggle could t arried forward. For the first time there w co-ordination between the clerical and manua workers. The strike, which was started on ar anti-Janata government basis, lasted six days. which was long enough to have a sharp impact on the Indian economy because the country is so dependent on imports and exports.
The people I was working with have now decided to join the Communist Party of India (Marxist), for no reason but that there was no other group for them to Join The CPM is supposed to be independent, but it's supported by Cuba and Czechoslovaia. While it has a big trade union he Bomay dorks. edaany had any •tradition in the. Bombay docks. glimpse of what we were trying to achieve, in the co-ordination between the workers.
This article is taken from a conversation with Suresh by GEOFFREY SHERIDAN. I you know. someone perhaps yourself! who you think might make a good subject for our At Work series, do let us know. Sqcialist Challenge , 18 October, 1979. Page 7
MICHAEL EDWARDES, the British Leyland boss, has But although it's fair enough to complain