Workforce and Labour Rights

India’s workers are under-waged and under-protected, but even the 20 million or so toiling in the registered factory sector often cannot enjoy the legal provisions due to poor enforcement. Across sectors, India’s workers rarely enjoy safe workplaces with decent facilities and routinely struggle to get paid on time at the legal rate and to access their social security entitlements. With labour administration under-resourced and union powers increasingly curbed, workers’ recourse to justice is increasingly difficult. Our programmes on Workforce and Labour Rights aim to give a voice to low-income industrial workers across India, offer information and raise awareness on their rights as workers, so that they collaborate to hold their employers and governments accountable for working conditions.

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Workers

A growing proportion of India’s workforce is hired casually and short-term and even for those in registered units, they struggle to access their entitlements.

Trade Unions and Collectives

Trade union and workers’ collectives build solidarity among workers and help them resolve their issues at ground level. We work with them to promote awareness, provide legal help and address workers’ grievances such as issues with provident fund, documentation and welfare support.

Worker Media
Organizations

Niche media houses cover worker-relevant news especially through online news portals and social media platforms like Youtube and Facebook. We work with them to promote information and awareness among workers.

Our Impact Pathways

Actionable Information & Awareness

Gram Vaani’s phone platforms provide information bulletins and respond to queries lodged by listeners with curated responses which everyone can hear. Every month, more than 150 queries are responded to.

Grievance Registering, Tracking & Redressal

Many problems cannot be solved on one’s own but need offline guidance and mentoring. Gram Vaani works with union and NGO partners and volunteer reporters, to assist workers registering tricky complaints. These lead to a call with an employer or contractor, help with an online procedure or filing a case in the labour office or court.

Collective Action

Gram Vaani’s platforms help to amplify the efforts of partner organisations in building solidarity and membership towards collective action, through petitions, press meets, social media campaigns and presence on the street.

Our Projects
admin 26 May, 2021

Encouraging Participatory Democracy through Gram Sabhas: Updates from Tamil Nadu

Two women-led unions in Tamil Nadu are using Gram Vaani’s IVR platforms to push for greater participation and accountability of Gram Sabha meetings, where citizens discuss their problems and needs and decide on ways to use available resources.

admin 7 Apr, 2021

An accident waiting to happen

Namma Kural, one of our IVR platforms in Tamil Nadu, helps workers register violations of labour and factory laws. Read this story of an accident in a firecracker manufacturing unit that was raised on Namma Kural.

admin 7 Apr, 2021

A platform for every worker: Saajha Manch

Gram Vaani’s Saajha Manch (“everyone’s platform”) uses voice-based IVR technology to build engagement of these populations in entitlements and governance. The platform focuses primarily on workers in the industrial areas of Delhi and the National Capital Region.

Highlights from the Field
admin 7 Apr, 2021

An accident waiting to happen

Namma Kural, one of our IVR platforms in Tamil Nadu, helps workers register violations of labour and factory laws. Read this story of an accident in a firecracker manufacturing unit that was raised on Namma Kural.

admin 7 Apr, 2021

We workers continue to struggle

Honda factory workers share their demands during their protest in Manesar, Haryana in early 2020.

admin 23 Dec, 2020

Lockdown chronicle: the migrants’ story

Read what we heard and responded to on Shramik Vaani, our migrant workers’ platform, during India’s lockdown.

Our Partners