The protest staged recently by women agricultural labourers in Tamsi and Talamadugu mandals in Adilabad district seeking hike in daily wages had all the ingredients of a struggle. However, it failed to convert itself into a movement apparently because women in other villages lacked organisational skills.
In the latter half of June, groups of women labourers started staging a protest in respective villages demanding increase in the wage for weeding from ₹100 per day to ₹150. The first of such protests was reported from Kapparla village in Tamsi mandal and it soon spread to Ponnari and Pochera in the same mandal, Sunkidi in Talamadugu mandal and Bheemsari in Adilabad mandal.
The noteworthy aspect of the protests was the absence of any trade union. The women staged the protests on their own.
“Inflation is so high,” lamented Malpethu Gangamma of Ponnari village where a week long abstention from work saw farmers increasing the daily wage for weeding operations from ₹100 to ₹130. “The money is hardly enough to make both ends meet,” she added. Gangamma’s contention is also a pointer towards an ever increasing malady in the households of the rural poor. The male members of the households, in a majority of instances, spend all the money they earn on consuming liquor and do not contribute anything to the family.
“In fact, the households of the poor are being run on the incomes of these women labourers,” concurred Gangadhar Goud, a farmer from Ponnari. He was of the opinion that women needed to be paid more as the last wage hike was over a decade back.
“We received written complaints from women in Ponnari, Bheemsari and Sunkidi and through mediation we solved the issue,” pointed out Adilabad in-charge Assistant Commissioner of Labour C. Jagadishwar Reddy. He said women are now getting between ₹130 and ₹150 per day though the minimum wage should be ₹240.
The agriculture labour force in undivided Adilabad district is about 3.5 lakh strong, 80% of whom are women.
The women get at least 100 days of work on cotton fields starting with weeding operations and ending with picking the produce during harvest months.
The rate of wages is different for different activities and women make more money per day during the harvest season. The men are paid a minimum of ₹200 per day as they are used in spraying of pesticides.