SEWA
began organising workers in the villages in 1979. At that time,
the Gujarat government had announced minimum wages for agricultural
labourers.
At
first, rural workers in SEWA were organised by the traditional
union strategies. There were many struggles for minimum wages.
Organisers were attacked in the fields and legal cases were undertaken.
Leave aside obtaining minimum wages, the village women who constitute
50% of the work force even lost whatever low-paid work they had,
as a result of the union action.
From
these experiences, we learned some hard lessons. The basis of
obtaining higher wages is the capacity and power to bargain. However,
the workers in these areas had neither this capacity nor the power,
because they were weak and vulnerable due to their lack of employment.
In a situation where there is an almost unending supply of labour
and limited employment, the workers are unable to bargain for
higher wages.
If
workers are to empower themselves and increase their bargaining
power, the only viable strategy is one of increasing local employment
opportunities. This is the strategy followed by SEWA for its rural
members. Rural organising has focused on:
-
Increasing
employment opportunities for women and thus increasing women's
bargaining power.
-
Developing
women's assets.
-
Capacity-building
and leadership development of rural women.
-
Providing
food & social security
-
Becoming
self-reliant both in economic terms and in terms of running
their own economic organisations.
-
Ecoregeneration
through employment for rural women.
-
Collaborating
with government's rural development programmes.
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