This is the story of millions of construction workers who constitute the second largest unorganised labour force in India. Like other sectors of unorganised labour such as agriculture, forest, fish and home-based workers, and so on, a female worker's participation in construction industry is of vital importance. In order to understand the situation of women construction workers and the kind of legal protection they get, it is necessary to look at the frame-work of construction industry , its functioning and unique characteristics.

According to the ILO:

Construction is one of the principal industries in all the countries. It is an industry which has its own unique characteristics and contributes to all developmental programmes. Almost all development programmes and projects require some construction work projects in the fields of health, education, food production, transport, etc.

Hence, it is true to say that construction industry underpins  development and provides the brick and mortar of progress. Its share of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross Capital Formation(GDF) signifies its importance (Tables 1 and 2).

                                                                Table 1
                                        GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT
                                         At current prices (in Rs. Crores)

Year                                     Total                                         Construction Industry

Year                                     Total                                        Construction Industry
1990-91                              140516                                             55732 (39.70%)
1991-92                              146420                                             65934 (45.03%)

The construction industry employs, next only to agriculture, the largest number of workers in our country .It includes variety of operations ranging from construction of dams, power houses, defense projects and bridges, harbours, roads, railway tracks and runways, to factories and offices, schools/hospitals and all residential buildings. It also includes demolition and maintenance of structures and services. Apart from this, many ancillary activities are related to the construction industry such as brick kilns, tile factory, stone quarrying, sand dredging, wood, glass, limestone, paints, steel, furnishing, fittings, and so on.

Characteristics of the Construction Industry

In the construction industry, the product is stationary and the production unit is mobile which is a unique feature of this industry. So the construction workers move from one site to another after completion of the job.

Each construction activity is unique in terms of its structure, duration, size of the construction and recruitment of staff and workers, and so on. The nature of work in the industry ranges from highly labour intensive to capital intensive jobs. Being the informal sector economic activity, there is absence of satisfactory regulatory requirements which make the entry into construction industry an easy task. So, there are a number of small and big contractors engaged in building and construction activity ranging from a one man team to a multicrore company employing hundreds of persons.

One of the very crucial characteristics of this industry is that the work in this industry is carried out through contracting and sub-contracting. The main contractor executes his work to the sub-contractors after receiving from the principle employer. Depending on the size/type of work, they transfer it to the petty contractors and again it can be given to the labour contractors who brings skilled and unskilled labourers to work. This type of function creates a chain of middlemen between the construction workers and the principle employers which denies direct employer-employee relationship in the construction industry .

In the construction industry , work is seasonal, temporary and causal in nature; the employment relations between the employer and employees are not permanent; and all relationships remain contractual.

The bulk of the construction workers come from rural areas as migrant workers are illiterate and poor and work under hazardous working conditions out of sheer necessity. They are scattered on construction sites so it is very difficult to organise them.

There are various laws applicable to these workers but the implementation is rendered cumbersome due to difficult terrain, poor legislations, too many project sites, migratory labour and
seasonal nature of work.

Recruitment in the Construction Industry

Recruitment in this industry is mostly through two types of systems. One of the very prevalent system is through mukadam/ jamadar/mistri [Middlemen] and through a system of pesgi or advance. The jamadar is responsible to bring labour when required. He retains and controls it during the contract period and takes it away when the job is over and brings it back when needed again. Another way of recruiting is from the open labour market. These workers are mostly recruited for petty jobs,like repairing on a daily basis and are found in big cities.

It is important to know the situation of construction workers in general so as to study the situation of women workers in particular .

Construction labour is the largest unorganised labour force in India. Due to the peculiar characteristics of the industry there is no accurate data available on the construction workers at present. Table 3 gives some basic figure.

                                            Male                         Female                         Total

India                                 50,14,861                     4,18,737                     54,33,598
Maharashtra                      8,01,737                      7,09,015                          92,720
Mumbai                           1,33,358                           12,181                      1,45,539
Source: India, 1991.

According the NCC-CL (National Campaign Committee for Central Legislation on Construction Labour) there are two-crore (20 million) construction workers in India. Even though there are different categories of labourers such as skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled, the majority of the labour force are unskilled, rural migrants from drought-prone areas, who are either marginal farmers or landless labourers.

The workers come to the city in search of jobs through the mukadam or by themselves and work under exploitative conditions. They have no security of employment and get very low wages. They have no educational, housing or other welfare facilities. Accidents are very frequent while medical facilities are almost nil. The skilled workers may be literate but unaware of their rights.

Unskilled workers are largely illiterate and ignorant, The constant social and economic oppression has developed in them a sense of apathy and fatalistic attitude to life,

The Plight of Women Workers

The women workers constitute sizable work force. They are employed in almost all the work related to construction process from  foundation work to masonry and beyond. The tasks performed by women labourers generally are:
 

• removing over ground material once excavated;
• carrying water, sand, cement mixture for foundation laying  and concrete pouring etc,;
• carrying required stones,bricks and tools required;
• helping in erection of scaffolding by carrying concrete materials;
• smoothening of surface with available local materials before I concrete mixture is poured for roofings; and
• cunng operations after structure is laid.

Another very important thing is that women workers enter this industry at a very early age. This is because the whole family works on the site and girls get easily absorbed in construction as 'helpers' at an early age. Even though they enter at a very early age, they remain 'helpers' only throughout their career. The kind of the work they do is strenuous and repetitive with no upward mobility. So, their contribution is always neglected in the construction industry as their work is looked as that of an 'assistant',

Even though there is an early entry into the industry, there is no promotion of work. There is upward mobility for male workers such as helper- skilled worker -petty contractor, and so on. But women remain same: as helpers, There are some efforts being made by different organisations to provide skills training for women workers in order to make them eligible for promotion. But it is very difficult to accept this by women themselves and by society at large. The 'Nirman' project of Nirmala Niketan tried to conduct a skill training programmes for naka women workers in Mumbai. The efforts were made to make them aware about the need for masonry training. In the process it was found that they became aware about the need for training but did not practically undergo it because they were afraid that they would never get work as 'masons' and would be looked as 'extraordinary women'

There is also a problem of access to.and retention of employment in construction. This is relevant in case of naka workers. The women workers standing on the naka have to be around the mukadam. They should be in .the good books of the employer so that they get the job. It has also been found on naka that as there is no regular employment. Sometimes, women workers also have to 'offer themselves' to the mukadam.

Their employment is obstructed by pregnancy and old age. Women workers have to leave their job at the time of delivery as they do not get any maternity leave even through they work till the last month. So afterwards they have to find anew job which is a difficult task. Old age is another problem of women workers as there is no social security measure for them. We have found that old women workers, standing on naka for jobs, do not have anything to stand on as there is no accotmt of their work.

Women workers face various problems while working on site. They do not get payment of holiday wages, medical care, provision of child care services, social security benefits, opportunity for skill acquisition, and so on. Women workers do not get maternity benefit which affect their work. Nursing mothers also find it difficult to feed their children while working on site as child care services are hardly provided on site. Social service security such as provident fund, and so on, is also not provided.

Legal Protection to Construction Labour

There are 28 laws applicable to construction industry. All the legislations provide the following in a nutshell:

1. Payment of specified minimum wages and equal remuneration to men and women employed in construction.

2. Prohibition of child labour.

3.. Provision of holiday, bonus, gratuity , provident fund, maternity benefit, creches, canteen, rest-room, drinking water, sanitation, first-aid and such welfare measures in certain establishments employing construction labour.

4. Provision of 'standing orders' for the internal governance of establishments.

5. Payment of compensation to workmen injured at work.

6. Provision of skills training through apprenticeship.

7. Regulation of employment of contract labour.

There is no special provision for women workers. According to
the Equal Remuneration Act, the women workers should get equal wages for same or similar kind of work. But in reality women workers do not get their right. In some cases, the payment is done for pair (male-female) and male workers always get a larger share. Other facilities such as creche provision and maternity benefits are hardly provided to women workers.

Even through these laws are applicable to women workers in particular and construction workers in general, in practice, because of the peculiar nature of this industry , they are hardly implemented.

Some of the basic reasons are shifting employer-employee relationships and no direct employer-employee relationship; seasonal nature of the employment scattered kind of work, general apathy; indifference of labour administration; and lack of labour organisations. There is a need for a comprehensive legislation, especially for construction workers, which will regularise their employment and provide them with all other facilities and social security mesures.

The Proposed Legislation

The NCC-CL has formulated a bill and scheme for construction workers and submitted to the committee on petitions of the Lok sabha on December 5, 1986. The unique feature of this bill has been that it was drafted in a meticulous manner and after careful consideration with the active participation of construction labourers themselves. This can be a central legislation for construction workers.

The gist of the proposed legislation is as follows:

1. Compulsory registration of the employers and of the workers.
2. Restriction on employment in the industry to only those workers who are registered under the law.

3. Prohibition of construction work by employers, without regis- tration under the law.

4. Equitable sharing of the available employment, category- wise on the basis of rotational booking of workers.

5. Vesting of the responsibility for determining wages and their disbursement in the autonomous body.

6. Provision for various other entitlements including social security and a minimum guarantee of wages by the autonomous body.

The main feature of the Bill is the proposal for the establishment of a Construction Labour Board which is a tripartite board comprising representatives of the government, the employers and the workers. The number of members representing the workers shall not be less than the total strength of members representing the employers and the government. The other features include the following:
 

• Establishment of similar Boards in every State with units in every municipal town/ city, revenue districts and centres of zones or local areas where in not less that 1000 workers are engaged in construction work:
• The worker's representatives shall be elected by secret bal- lot.

1. Allocation of construction labour to the contractors or employers at different sites from the workmen registered
        with the Board.

2. Transfer of workers from one State to another and from one district to another.

3. To control promotion: when a vacancy arises, a worker in the next lower category shall ordinarily be promoted to
    fill up the vacancy.

4. Allot work of each category by rotation.

5. Pay workers overtime allowance when they work for more than eight hours.

6. Provision of the social welfare measures and social security facilities such as provident fund, gratuity and other
    terminal benefits.

7. Provision of payment of guaranteed minimum wage every month to the registered workers.

8. Provision of holidays, health and safety provisions in every site, maternity benefit and accident compensation.

9. charge of construction levy, contributions to the construction workers welfare fund, the ESIS, provident fund, gratuity and maternity benefit paybale and the cost of operating the Board, shall be collected from the registered employers.

The enforcement of these provisions is by the Dispute Resoultion Council through procedures such as cessation of the entire construction work, delicensing the employer/contractor temporarily as well as permanently, and suspension as well as termination of the contract. Similarly, employees may be suspended, disentitled to payment or removed from the register. Disputes relating to this scheme shall not lie under the jurisdiction of any Civil or Laborur Court.
 

REFERENCES
India                            : Census of India, New Delhi.
1991