A significant section of urban unorganised workforce, include the Hamal or Mathadi workers, i.e. workers employed in the manual work of loading and unloading of heavy goods, including food and agri-products, furniture, metal parts (such as metal sheets, bars, etc), finished and unfinished garments, electricals, machine parts and hand tools used in manufacturing factories, construction material such as brick, sand, concrete, processed food items, amongst other such material. The Hamal workers engage in manual loading-unloading and transportation of such items on the day-to-day basis. There are large numbers of hamal workers working either as head-loaders, back-loaders, peddle-cart pullers, hand-cart pullers, tempo drivers, auto drivers, and truck drivers, all of who are especially engaged in loading-unloading at the shops or units where the goods are either transported from or delivered at. In the inner-city area of Ahmedabad (within the circular stretch of Sardar Patel ring road), there are around 25 private and government markets including the main APMC market in Vasna, smaller market yards and sub-yards, private mandis and estates in different parts of the city.
Major hubs where such markets are situated, include Kalupur, Jamalpur, Vasna, Lal darwaza, Isanpur, Naroda, Narol, Aslali, Rakhiyal, Odhav, Shahibaug, amongst others. Of these, there are five registered marketing yards, which include: Chimanbhai Patel APMC in Vasna, Jamalpur Flower Market, Naroda Fruit Market, Vegetable market at Lal Darwaza, Manekchowk Fruit Market, i.e. they have an association and a large part of the hamal workers in these markets, are formal workers and enrolled on permanent basis by the association of traders. These associations are regulated under Gujarat State Agriculture Marketing Board, set up under the Department of Agriculture, Farmer’s Welfare and Co-operation, under Government of Gujarat, whereas the private mandis do not have such rules or framework to either govern the hamali work or restrictions on the purchase or sale of products.
Changing trends in the Hamali work in Ahmedabad, in recent years:
In the last ten years, the mandis and warehouses have shifted further ahead of the Sardar Patel ring road, in the areas including Sanand, Kheda, Nadiad, Kalol, Gandhinagar, and Mehsana. The tempos and mini-trucks have made the transportation of goods a little easier, but the wage rates for tempo workers has not improved adequately. An additional amount is charged by the hamal worker if the goods delivery has to be made in areas ahead of S.P ring road i.e. outside the core city areas where service markets are located. At the same time, hamal workers going for deliveries outside S.P ring road, cannot take more than 1 or 2 deliveries in a day because of long distances and commute time. While the tempo, auto, and truck drivers are able to earn higher because the locomotive based transport is able to deliver more goods in a quicker time, compared to the head-loaders, back-loaders, hand cart pullers, and peddle cart pullers. These non-locomotive hamal workers, are mostly casual and face precarities on day to day basis. Furthermore, very few markets have a trade union or a body of workers which can negotiate wages payments, unlike the vyaparis (merchants), who have formed trader associations to protect their business interests. The association also provides basic amenities in the markets such as resting points, drinking water points, toilets, etc, which the smaller markets do not have as they don’t have such association bodies formed.
Hamal workers are largely employed in two ways – on fixed pay (where the pay is not dependent on number of trips the hamal workers undertake, or number of units i.e. kilograms/quintals of goods they load or unload); and on casual basis (where if the hamal worker is a tempo driver, then apart from the pre-decided loading-unloading rates, they are paid on per trip basis; and if he/she is only doing loading-unloading, then they are paid on the units of goods they load and unload through the day and the rates for the units are pre-decided). In most mandis, workers are hired on casual basis i.e. they receive wages according to the units of goods loaded and unloaded. In markets where trade unions of Hamal workers are present, there is a systematic demand by hamal trade unions, where after every two years, the trade unions push for revising the wage rates for Hamalis, in accordance to the increasing household needs and the inflation rates, as well as push for regulation of units of goods being loaded-unloaded, and transported by Hamalis, as well as capping the number of units being loaded-unloaded and transported manually by hamalis (one can observe that vyaparis and mukaldhams tend to coerce hamalis to carry units beyond the permissible limits of weight).
Role of Hamal Suraksha Sangh, a trade union representing diverse hamal workers in Ahmedabad’s markets:
Hamal Suraksha Sangh (HSS) is a registered trade union of Hamal workers in Kalupur and Madhupura mandis. HSS represents Hamal workers involved in loading-unloading andtransporting agro products such as oil, spices, onions, garlic, potatoes, chillies, coconuts, pulses, rice, grains etc to retailers within the city. Currently HSS has presence of its members in markets such as Vasna APMC, Jamalpur flower market, Gheekantha cloth market, Kalupur, Old Madhupura, New Madhupura, Lal Darwaza, Manekchowk, Dariyapur, Geeta Mandir, Naroda Fruit Market, amongst others. There are six types of Hamali workers involved with HSS – headloaders and backloaders, peddle cart pullers, hand cart pullers, tempo/auto drivers and helpers, vaitras (those who measure weights) and mukaldhams (petty contractors who source hamal workers for the traders).
Through HSS’s interventions, the rates for these five categories of Hamali workers in the markets such as Kalupur and Madhupura, were revised periodically after every two years. Under HSS’s banner, the hamal workers called for a strike against Kalupur Traders’ Association, in January 2024, when the demands for wage revision was not being accepted by the association. After two weeks of strike outside the office of traders’ association, and advocacy with the labour commissioner’s office, the association accepted the wage revision demands and provided an increase of 2.5 Rs for a 50 kg bori (sack), across all categories of hamali workers in the Kalupur market. This move benefitted over 1200 hamal workers employed in approximately 300 registered shops in the Kalupur market.
Efforts to unionise Hamali workers in Ahmedabad and why it could not work:
While HSS plays an important role protecting interests of Hamali workers while negotiating with the vyaparis and the traders’ association, similar trade unions have vanished from other markets in Ahmedabad. For instance, Jayanti Thakor, an aged union leader who served as a member in the committee of welfare board named Amdavad Kapad Bajaar ane Dukaan Kamdaar Board (Ahmedabad Cloth Market and Shop Workers’ Board), said that this board was set up to represent the labour interests of Hamal workers specifically in the cloth markets, and its board members consisted of seven members – one member each from three Mahajan Mandals (Associations of traders) – Maskati Mahajan, Panchkuva Mahajan, Sindhi Mahajan, which largely represented the interest of traders.
Apart from these, the board also included one representative from SEWA (Self-Employed Women’s Association), two representatives from haath laari mandal (hand-cart pullers union), and one representatives of the state i.e. the chairman of the board directly appointed by the Labour Minister of the Gujarat State. Thereby, the board consisted of seven members, who constituted the board for implementation of various entitlements and benefits resoluted and mandated by the board. Jayantibhai further said that this board was not dissolved but it remained de-funct since the state government failed in appointing a chairman to operate the board after 2019.
Why the Welfare board for Hamal workers fail in protecting hamal workers’ interests?
Jayantibhai observed that there was also a dwindling and passive response from association and union representatives in operationalising the board, primarily because the workers’ did not receive any important entitlements as such and the management and decision-making remained firmly in the hands of state appointed chairman.
Jayantibhai notes “Apart from a few cases pertaining to widow pension and assistance to the family at the time of death of a worker, there was nothing else that the board assured to hamalis. The board was set up by the Gujarat government in 1969, but it became functional only in 1981. After this, the government did not have any funds till 1992 to operationalise the board. It is only after 1994 that the board started receiving income and incurred expenses. This was done after the government took a loan on board’s behalf in 1992-93. Once the board operationalised in 1994, the collections from the board raised as a levy was used in re-paying the same loan with an interest. The revenue sheet of the board only showed the expenses, i.e. all the levy that was collected through the contribution of board members, was being spent for paying the handsome salaries of government appointed inspectors and officers. There were no applications of members processed by the board, other then a few applications cleared by SEWA representatives in the board, who helped a few hamal women workers in accessing the widow pension scheme of the board”
Jayantibhai added, “Government appointed chairman would simply share minutes and income-expense statements after every six months, and would not give any explanation regarding why the board is not able to widen its collections, or process more applications received by the board. Salaries for the government officers and miscellaneous costs would account for 70 percent of the expenses from the income received. There were additional overdue amounts that was mostly used to pay taxes and loans by the board. So, they must have decided to make the defunct the board after 2019, because it did not receive any extra-ordinary collections and whatever it received in terms of revenue, could not be used for social security entitlements for more than 2500 hamal members who registered with the board”.
One could therefore pinpoint the reasons such as the management and decision-making power of the board vested with the government appointed chairman, using the collections from the board received as levy to re-pay the dues towards borrowings (alongwith interests) which the state government borrowed on behalf of the board to operationalise the board, and dwindling interests of association and union office-bearers, who received very little as entitlements from the levy raised by the board. A crucial reason Jayantibhai points out is the fact that the contractualization of Hamal workers has also led to this situation, where only the vaitras and mukaldhams had some kind of stake in the board. It is also one of the failures of the contract-based work that the most casual hamal worker, is not involved either in managing the board and its collections, nor receives any benefits through the welfare schemes provisioned by the board.
Need for unionising hamal workers across diverse trades and locations in Gujarat, and a Welfare board that represents issues of hamal workers:
Currently there are 13 trades across Ahmedabad where Hamal workers are spread-over – trades such as transport, iron parts, food products, oil, stones, cement and construction material, wood and timber, plastic materials such as pipes and pipe fittings, furniture, readymade clothes and garments, vegetables, fruits, office stationery, second hand items, etc. These are also the trades where the non-regular, casual hamal workers are employed in large numbers. Jayantibhai suggested that workers from these diverse trades should be brought under one trade union or a federation, which should press for a unified interests of hamal workers, and a welfare board that regulates minimum wages for casual and contract hamal workers, as well as provides them with pensions and other social security entitlements. Similar to the Building and other Workers’ Construction Board (1996) formed under Union Government’s Ministry for Labour and Employment to provide social security entitlements to all construction workers, and the 36 Mathadi Boards established under the Maharashtra State Government’s Mathadi and other Unprotected Workers Act (1969) in the state of Maharashtra to provide social security entitlements to all hamali workers, and several other welfare boards in states such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala; a broad welfare board at the level of the state should be constituted for all the hamalis in the state of Gujarat.
Pannalal, who closely works with Hamal Suraksha Sangh and has played a key role in enrolling over 2000 hamal workers with HSS since 2016, suggests formulation of a welfare board for all hamal workers, across different markets and different areas, could also help greatly in registering of thousands of casual hamal workers in Ahmedabad’s service markets.
Further, he suggests that the new workforce on digital platforms such as Flipkart, Amazon, Reliance JioMart, Delhivery, Porter, etc employ hamal workers for loading-unloading tasks involved in warehousing management, warehouse to store transportation, and store to home delivery of heavy goods. These new warehousing and transport industries have moved beyond the inner city limits of Ahmedabad, and have expanded to suburbs such as Sanand, Kheda, Nadiad, Kadi-Kalol, Mehsana, Gandhinagar, Himmatnagar. These workers could also be registered with the hamal workers’ welfare board, alongwith the servicing markets in the inner-city areas of Ahmedabad, which can then become a model city-based welfare board to register and formalise hamal workers across the state, employed in various trades.
Bhargav Oza is a labour rights activist and researcher, working currently with Aajeevika Bureau. He is also currently pursuing an LLB from Gujarat University. He would like to thank Pannalal, Neerav Parmar, and Jayanti Thakor (associated with Hamal Suraksha Sangh), who provided valuable insights and inputs in developing this article. You can reach out to him on [email protected] or bhargav-oza on LinkedIn
