SANITATION workers from across India gathered in Delhi for the National Convention on 18 November 2008 organized by AICCTU. Sanitation workers from several States including Bihar, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi participated in the convention. Present as speakers were AICCTU JNU unit President Com. Urmila Chauhan, BBMP Guttiga Powrakarmikara Sangha General Secretary Com. Nirmala, Com. Mithun Jena from the Angul District Sanitation Workers Association, All India Municipal Workers President Com. Shyamlal, All India Municipal Workers Federation (Chhattisgarh) leader Com. Manoj Kosare, Pune Municipal Corporation Workers Union President Com. Uday Bhatt, and others. Several leaders of the sanitation workers’ struggles including Motam Devi (Bhartiya Bhilai Nagar Nigam), Urmila Chauhan (President, AIGKU JNU Unit) and other leaders from the movement of the Sanitation Workers talked about the plight of sanitation workers, the Jumla of Swachh Bharat and the resolve towards intensifying the struggle in the coming days.
Com. Urmila Chauhan, herself a sanitation worker and also the AICCTU JNU unit President, said that in 2014 our Unit at JNU, after a long battle, ensured that sanitation workers will neither enter into sewers, nor pick up dead animals. Three of our comrade workers at JNU died due to work-related illnesses, but still we are carrying on the fight for rights and dignity.
BBMP Guttige Powrakarmikara Sangha General Secretary, Com. Nirmala said that in the contract system in sanitation work ended in Karnataka after a 15-year long battle fought by sanitation workers. Earlier, contractors there even used to sexually harass women sanitation workers. But now, after our struggles, sanitation workers are employed under the Municipal Corporations, though they still have to face caste discrimination and untouchability. Our struggle for social dignity is still on.
Along with the sanitation workers, CPI (ML) General Secretary Com. Dipankar Bhattacharya also addressed the convention and supported their demands. Well-known journalist from the sanitation workers’ movement Bhasha Singh also spoke at the convention. Bhasha Singh congratulated AICCTU on organizing this convention, bringing to the fore the problems and demands of sanitation workers and making it a political issue. She said that today the death of sanitation workers due to entering sewers has become almost a daily occurrence, but neither the Central government not any State government has come up with any plan to stop such deaths. AIPWA National Secretary Com. Kavita Krishnan also attended the conference and supported the movement.
AICCTU National General Secretary Com. Rajiv Dimri said that if we listen to voice of sanitation workers across the country, it becomes clear that the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is a huge scam and a ‘jumla’ like all the other government schemes. Narendra Modi has not spoken a single word about the almost daily sewer deaths of sanitation workers. His government has failed totally and miserably to ensure the dignity and rights of sanitation workers. The anger of sanitation workers against the government is very evident, and Modi will have to pay the price for this in the Lok Sabha elections next year.
The cultural teams Sangwari and Dasta presented songs during the convention which was presided over by Clifton D’Rozario. The national convention concluded with the resolution that similar programs would be organized in the future in various States also. Through another resolution, the sanitation workers decided that they would participate in a 2-day countrywide strike called by sanitation workers’ Unions across India, and would campaign for the success of the strike.
