Four months ago, sanitation workers began a protest outside the Ripon Building, HQ of the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC), demanding permanent employment, opposing privatisations and calling on the GCC to “recall to work those who were dismissed”.
These workers are paid a pittance, Rs.15,000 or Rs.23,000, which in a city like Chennai is an unlivable wage. Their conditions are also very bad, most residing in slums like Kannagi Nagar and Buckingham Canal. Students who live in these areas are subjected to social isolation and are not given jobs just because of the area they come from.
The decision to privatise “solid waste management” has sparked huge protest among the sanitation workers in Chennai. The government says this work will be taken care of by a private company called the Ramki Group, which has a track history of serious violations.
In Virudunagar, this company ran a “biomedical waste incineration facility”. In a medical screening, 74 out of 159 people living around this facility were found to have kidney problems, asthma symptoms, and others developed allergies.
The Ramki Group also had not received the necessary license for the facility, and manipulated their accounts, concealing their profits and cooking up an artificial loss of Rs 1,200 crore to evade capital gains tax.
Nearly 2,000 were employed as contract workers under the “National Urban Livelihood Mission” (NULM), and worked for more than 15 years without being given a permanent position.
The operational zones like Royapuram, Thondayarpet were already handed to private companies. The workers allege that under this private management they are asked to work for Rs.17,000rs in hand and have faced cuts to their Employee State Insurance (ESI) and Provident Fund (PF).
The then-opposition and now ruling party DMK promised in their election manifesto that “if they come to power they will make these jobs permanent”, and now the workers are asking for this promise to be fulfilled. The workers also allege that the GCC commissioner J. Kumaragurubaran has been colluding with the bosses and state to pass through the privatisation.
Since the workers refused to go to work and continue to protest, the city smells foul. This is a very tangible demonstration of the power of the working class, without whom society could not function! To tackle this, the government is hiring temporary workers as scab labour, while refusing any negotiation.
The workers allege that their protective gear, toilet facilities and shelters during summers and monsoon seasons were insufficient. An organisation has filed a writ petition in court under the Industrial Disputes Act. The court ordered that a reference can be sent for this petition. The GCC has also filed an appeal from their side.
A government order (G.O.) should then have been issued but was intentionally delayed by the secretariat, representing the government. The court ordered that outsourcing must stop on 31 July last year, but due to the scandalous delay, five female workers went on a hunger strike.
Again, a petition was filed in the court and then the G.O. was passed. Based on the G.O, a case was filed in the Industrial Tribunal. Now, if the GCC wants to take any action it must be done via the approval of an Industrial Tribunal.
Despite this, the GCC ordered that from 1 August, the sanitation workers would work under private management.
We are now entering 2026, and the struggle still continues. The workers are still protesting. They have even protested in graveyards, jumped into the sea, jumped into the Cooum river (where all drainage waste flows form the whole of Chennai city) and have protested at the DMK patriarch’s memorial.
The government’s total refusal to hold talks caused suspicion of caste prejudice, as the majority of workers are from scheduled castes (SC), otherwise known as untouchables, who are often expected to take on the dirtiest work and to endure abysmal treatment.
The government pays lip service to social justice but appoints candidates in elections based on caste. These hypocrites want the vote of underprivileged people but do nothing to help them after they come to power. The workers are now in desperate financial need and are unable to pay school fees for their children.
The fight continues, but the end of all this misery, oppression and theft will only come when the workers come to power, abolishing the rotten caste system along with the Indian capitalist system that exploits it to enforce the rule of a privileged few.
Solidarity with the Chennai sanitation workers!
Long live the revolution!
Death to capitalism!
Long live the proletariat!
