In Ahmedabad, the Sabarmati Riverfront will experience another mass labour protest today, with hundreds of workers protesting to get solutions to their long-standing grievances. The rally, which will be organized by the local labour unions and worker associations, will attract the attention of the authorities to unsolved employment problems, wage claims, and the insufficiency of social security benefits to the contract and daily-wage employees in the city.
Organizers claim that different workforces, such as sanitation workers, construction workers, textile workers, and contract-based workers, among others, would attend the peaceful demonstration. The rally march will begin at the eastern side of Riverfront and towards the civic administration office, where the representatives will hand over a memorandum of demands.
Allegedly, the union leaders have urged the municipal and state authorities several times, but they have not made any tangible steps to regularize employment or guarantee the salary on time. Lots of people earning a daily wage allege that their job has been pending permanence. We are toiling to make the city functional, but we fight to get the essential rights and sanity. It is our united cry of justice, heard by one of the union spokespersons.
The Ahmedabad Police Department has also introduced more forces in the major protest areas to maintain law and order. Diversions of traffic have been announced in major stretches of the Riverfront, and commuters have been advised to use alternative routes during the rally periods.
The representatives of the labour department have already admitted to the existing concerns and promised that a conversation with the representatives of the workers will take place in the near future. A senior government officer commented by saying that we have no problem with the workers demonstrating against us peacefully, and we are willing to hold talks with them in order to find solutions to their problems in a lawful process.
The current rally demonstrates the increasing displeasure of the labour communities that experience job insecurity, lack of payments, and unsatisfactory working conditions. According to labour experts, such protests indicate a bigger desire for reforming the labour laws and contract employment system in India, to ensure the workers have better protection of their rights.
With thousands of people coming together at the Riverfront, they are all watching whether this protest will result in the government taking urgent measures or simply another addition to the list of unanswered labour demands in the industrial capital of Gujarat.
