They have a silent protest and after 22 days nothing happens, then the union joins for another 22 days, nothing happens, then they break something.
Driving through narrow back roads of Kerala, the Sothern most state in India on our way to our next hotel we drove by a group of people. They were standing in a red tent they had set up all holding signs and were surrounded by communist flags. At that time I thought nothing of it, we kept driving, I did not read what their signs had to say, I assumed it was unimportant and had to do with electing some official from the communist party. But others in our group were more observant, they found out that these people were protesting so on our way out of the hotel we stopped to talk to them about their cause. We got out of our nice big air-conditioned bus after staying in a resort in the area to come face to face with reality. The “Kerala model” is a mythos referred to in intellectual circle relating to Political economy and development. Kerala is an example of how people can live lives good lives though their GDP is low. Statistics on Kerala show them having a higher quality of life including: lower infant mortality rate and a higher mean age of death than the rest of India and most of the developing world. Also Kerala has a literacy level that is even with countries in the First world. In some ways the rhetoric of the Kerala model can be seen as showing Kerala as a place untouched by the problem of the developing world. The truth of what we came to learn from our time in Kerala was that every system has its ups and downs. Though Kerala has been able to do many good things in comparison to other states in India- no system is truly perfect.
We talked to the men in the tent, one of them had pretty good English. Our guest professor on the trip Anil was a Kerala native and knew the language of the state, Malayalam, and helped to translate for us. Anil did his post-graduate work on development and looking at the Kerala model, he spoke to us about his findings. All of the information from him gave us context for our whole stay in Kerala including this strike.
These men we were talking to had all recently not had their contracts renewed for their positions at the Zuri Resort and Spa, a neighboring resort to the one we had just stayed in. On our way to the resort I saw the Zuri and could not help but to laugh at it as well as be disturbed by it. This resort was the epitome of the resort stereotype. Its big gated walls rose up looking so unnatural in the lush local greenery and marshy agricultural land that surrounded it. It was meant for Westerner tourists to stay in. It enabled people to go to a foreign country but never truly leave their own.
The men told us what it was like to work for a resort. There were long hours and they were treated close to slaves, doing whatever the owner wanted for as long as they wanted. The amount of hours they stayed every day varied, they would stay for as many hours as asked and were never paid over time for it. They lost time with their families but never complained about any of it. But they said that recently the Zuri began to “phase out” staff that had been working there for more than three years. These staff members had been getting pay raises during their time at the Zuri and their salaries at the time they left could pay for the salary of two new workers, which is what the Zuri opted to do.
These men were loyal and good workers, suffering hard conditions to be able to make money. They told us that they were not asking for fewer hours, for over time, for better treatment or even for job security. All they asked was to be treated fairly. They had not has their contracts renewed without sufficient explanation. They said that their bosses were always happy with their work and never complained about them. The men knew that their work at the resort was not permanent but this was too much for them. The resorts did not use long-term contracts. The workers were only signed on for a year at a time. They knew that eventually their contract would not be renewed but they assumed that tome would be when they could no longer do their work well, but this was not the case.
Kerala was the first state in India to elect the communist party. The CPI or communist party of India was brought to Kerala in 1937, elected in 1957and is still strong to this day. It is one of the two leading parties in the state. The CPI party controlled the congress in Kerala for a while though they are currently not in power. This communist influence has made Kerala a very socialist state, more so than any other in India. Taj, a man who flew from New York with us whose family is from Kerala told us that Kerala is the most politically free state, saying that the people know there rights and as soon as they feel cheated they speak up in the form of strikes and protests; both of which are common in Kerala.
The workers started with the Gandhian non-violence approach. Setting up their stop near the resort, hoping to have their voices heard. This was an attempt to have the Management at the Zuri resort talk to them. When we talked to them they had already been there for 22 days. Our guest scholar told us that the Union was going to join then and give them support. Unions are very common in India but more prominent in Kerala than any other state. One might think that unions would not be that helpful in a state with a lot of informal workers but even they are unionized.The types of unions would surprise you. The most interesting one we heard of during our time in Kerala was that of the Kallu gatherers. Kallu is an alcohol tapped from the coconut tree; men climb coconut trees to gather it. Unions play an important role in both the state and the country. We talked to the owner of a few rubber plantations about his relationship with the rubber tapper’s union and his responses were all positive. These unions along with the state, worker representatives and bosses negotiate wages every year for the workers within each union so they are relatively the same within the state. They also help find extra workers when they are needed. This made it so when extra hands were needed temporarily the workers came from the area. Often the union gave priority to the children of the people who already worked in the profession. The union helped promote a local labor force which helped cut down on cheap migrant labor that could ruin the worker’s salaries. But these men told us that the Zuri was targeting workers in the Union, letting them go first. This is common all over the world and very terrible. These men should not be forced to choose between protection from a union and a job. Unfortunately Kerala has moved away from its communist background moving more into the Neo-Liberal model that the rest of India has been fast adopting in mimicry of the Western model. The biggest problem is that these men deserve these jobs and the pay that they have been receiving but in the Neo-Liberal world the ideology is to make as much profit as possible and that comes from minimizing your costs, including the cost of labor.
This problem is occurring all over Kerala. The Malayali people are a highly educated bunch of people, having one of the highest literacy rates in the world. The percent of literacy is debated but is in the high nineties. The people of Kerala are trained for good jobs of which there are not enough of. There are enough jobs for people but the educated population find many jobs below them and their education.
Our guest scholar told us that it was most likely that these workers and their strike would continue to be unheard and unrecognized. That it was likely that the resort would never respond to the workers. He said that this is where the problem lies. The union people will stay there for another 22 days, keeping to the Gandhian non-violence tactics. Then if they continued to be ignored they would get violent. It is great to have the Unions, pay increases, and the ability to express one’s beliefs but is it enough? No. The Zuri was able to exploit its workers then just toss them to the streets for more fresh workers and now they do not have to listen and they will not.
http://www.thezurihotels.com/kumarakom/