Workers’ Exploitation in Corporations

Karl Marx said that workers in a capitalist society are exploited insofar as they are forced to sell their labor power to capitalists for less than the full value of the commodities they produce with their labor. And this has never been held to be more true than in the present. White-collar workers can also face various forms of exploitation in a corporate setup, but it is on an unprecedented and inhumane level for the Blue-collar community. Some scholars have also termed it as ‘forced labour’ or ‘modern day slavery’. This exploitation violates their basic human rights, liberty and dignity which is technically unconstitutional. This happens due to the unorganized nature of their employment and it is important to note that about 90% of the workers in India form a part of the sector. Be it rural or urban, capitalism and privatization seem inescapable which leads to a power imbalance in society considering the profit earned is solely for the owners and not the Blue-collar workers, even though the system would collapse the minute they stop contributing. I would like to elaborate on how workers’ exploitation works out by taking the case of mainly two leading corporations with exponential growth in India, Amazon and Swiggy.

Amazon describes itself as a vast Internet-based enterprise that sells books, music, movies, housewares, electronics, toys, and many other goods, either directly or as the middle person between other retailers and Amazon’s millions of customers. The service overshadows the method of providing it. In 2017, Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos met with India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and said it was “terrific to witness the optimism and invention in India” and pledged to expand the investment here. But the surprising question is, where does this investment go? Possibly in maximizing his own profits. Workers in India’s Amazon warehouses have to work for about 45-48 hours per week, without compensation for the extra hours. According to Vijay Gopal, a prior employee at Amazon, workers have been asked to work for 20 extra hours per week without any justification or earning. His complaint to Telangana’s Department of Labour in 2019, penned down that the Company was clearly violating laws of the Shops & Establishments Act, 1988. While Bezos, the second richest person on Earth, earns $2.8 billion in one day, packing workers for Amazon receive a meager salary of $233 per month, an amount they can barely survive on in today’s expensive world. The Company is also known to be notorious when it comes to workers’ safety. Workers in warehouses have been asked to work through bathroom breaks and have not been provided with any sort of air conditioning in hot summers. On average, some warehouse workers also walk up to 20 miles per day.

In 2019, a few documents leaked that from Amazon’s supplier, Foxconn, which also makes iPhones for Apple, showed children in China working in Amazon factories to produce one of India’s growingly popular devices, called “Alexa”. Foxconn had admitted that it had employed children illegally, made them work in night shifts for extra hours too but no action was taken against the giant corporation. Various activists have persistently accused Amazon of indulging in child-labour but the Company has constantly suppressed studies and denied the allegations. The case is even worse for Tesla, a company owned by Elon Musk, the richest man in the world.

Now, the situation of workers employed by delivery app conglomerates such as Swiggy and Zomato, is also not all that different. We all have had the urge to order food online at some point, we all have appreciated the comfort of the act, we all have expected the delivery person to arrive on or before time, no matter what the circumstance is. This is the principle on which online food ordering and delivering platforms function on. Recently, many Swiggy delivery persons came out on twitter anonymously with their stories of exploitation. One victim said, “We dodge death, accidents to deliver their orders on time. We want respect.” Similar concerns were raised by Uber and Ola employees as well. Tips are known to not be handed over to those who earned them, the workers. And their career trajectory at the company also revolves around the rating feature of the applications. “I want customers to know that we are underpaid, we go through a lot to deliver their order.”, wrote another anonymous worker. The work hours extend to 12 to 14 hours per day, with a minimal pay. Considering the inflation in fuel prices, an earning of Rs 20 for deliveries within four km, and Rs 5 per km beyond it is seemingly inadequate. Newslaundry reported that a full-time delivery person who works at least 12 hours a day might earn Rs 700-1,000 a day, but would have to spend Rs 400 on fuel, at least in a city like Mumbai. This can also prove to disrupt one’s physical and mental health. Safety hazard, as mentioned, is one of the biggest issues for delivery persons working in Swiggy.

Moreover, there is a growing problem of job insecurity and this uncertainty is not limited to Swiggy and Amazon workers but extends to organizations such as Quess Corp that calls itself leading Indian business services provider. There is not much information on how the workers have been treated by the business but from my observation of the company’s functioning, one thing can be clearly said, they do not care about workers’ rights. The push by Quess Corp is on shifting from direct hiring to contractual hiring in businesses, universities and everywhere in between. Contractual hiring is the mechanism through which the employee can hire workers for a short period of time. This leads to the worker having negligible employee benefits and a constant sense of fear of getting fired. Blue-collar workers are treated as a commodity in the name of productivity. Clearly, things are getting worse as capitalism becomes a more invasive system but the least we can do is recognise the issues of the said system that only focuses on maximizing profits and takes away our humanity in return for some ‘convenience and comfort’.

We, at BTS, work on the same goal. The aim of the NGO is to break away from this culture and promote dignity of labour. It is important for us to realise the basic human rights of blue-collar workers to not be overworked and underpaid, to live a life of liberty and to also have financial stability through fair terms of employment, wage rates and tenure. Do contact us if you wish to contribute or have any suggestions for our community!