ICEM and the Building & Wood Workers’ International (BWI) are actively continuing the campaign of the Indian Cement Workers Federation (INCWF) for equal rights, better conditions, and higher salaries for contract workers at Swiss-based cement multinational Holcim. Union busting and police harassment were increased at Holcim-India over the last two weeks, and a worker rally at the Labour Ministry was organized in response.

The renewed worker anger was sparked by an incident on 19 May with the arrest Bhagwati Sahu, who was falsely accused of stealing Rs. 3,500 and a mobile phone. Brother Sahu is a trade union organizer for contract workers at the Holcim-Ambuja plant in Rawaan.

Claims of police complicity with the company were compounded when the local police opposed bail and spuriously calling Sahu a “habitual offender, dangerous, and a threat to law and order.” Numerous witnesses came forward to testify that Bhagwati was elsewhere at the time of the incident. Lakhan Sahu, a fellow union activist, was also charged with the same crime. He was attending a family funeral in Raipur, a one-day drive south of Rawaan.

The fake charges, intended to break the union organising of contractors at Holcim, also targeted six other union activists.

Join the campaign yourself by sending a message to the Holcim CEO via the BWI website here.

INCWF, an affiliate of both the ICEM and BWI, has conducted a long-running campaign calling for equal rights for contract workers, as stipulated under Indian law. Holcim-India continuously neglects this legislation, specifically at its subsidiaries of ACC in Bhilai and Ambuja Cement in Baloda Bazar.

On 26 May, 250 contract workers reached Raipur to meet the Labour Ministry and Labour Secretary to demand the implementation of the High Court order directing regularization, and the withdrawal of the false cases against their union leaders. Both the minister and secretary avoided meeting the workers though their subordinates made “assurances” of looking into the workers’ grievances.

The BWI, ICEM, and Swiss trade union UNIA are planning to send a delegation to India to investigate the grievances.

Holcim is the second largest producer of cement in the world. An average salary for Indian contract workers of US$2.17 a day and India’s large quantities of limestone are reasons why Holcim has shifted production to the Asian sub-continent from countries such as Spain and the US.