Resisting labour control and optimizing social ties: experiences of women construction workers in Delhi

Introduction

The expanding informal sector in many parts of the developing world is seen as providing employment to large numbers of people, particularly women. Yet, for millions of women, poor working conditions, lack of social and legal recognition of their work and of employment and social security ‘undermine some of the more positive, empowering aspects of entry into paid work’ (Cornwall, 2013: viii). It is recognized that the policies of globalization in developing countries that involve liberalization of trade and investment and reduction in social security expenditure affect men and women differently. Women are increasingly pushed to low-wage, low-productivity occupations, which involve greater pressure and drudgery (Carr and Chen, 2002, 2004). In India, the introduction of liberalization policies, beginning in the late 1980s, has resulted in a massive expansion of the informal sector. Women, more than men, are increasingly concentrated in jobs that are casual, temporary and low paid. The report of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS, 2007: 85) based on the National Sample Survey data for 2004–5 (61st round) indicates that 47 per cent of women wage workers were engaged as casual workers, largely in the construction and manufacturing sectors: 39 per cent and 29 per cent, respectively. Though their numbers in the construction industry have more than doubled from around 2.07 million in 2004–05 to 6.5 million in 2009–2010 (Mazumdar and Neetha, 2011: 16), their employment in the sector is impermanent and insecure, leading them to move back and forth between other alternatives such as employment in agriculture or in domestic work in the cities.

Workers are generally recruited to work at construction sites by thekedaars (contractors) with whom they share social ties – ties of caste, kinship or locality. They are usually unaware of their legal rights. At the same time, the employers/contractors organize production in ways that allow them to evade legislation and increase their own gains. In such a situation, workers rely more on their social ties with the contractors – they perceive themselves as responsible for complying with the work discipline they are subjected to and, in turn, expect the latter to safeguard their interests (Bapat, 1997; Joshi, 1984; Khuntia, 2005). Women workers find themselves to be more constrained to offer resistance or bring about changes in their conditions of work. They are dependent not just on the contractor, but also on their husbands for their employment and incomes, and generally work alongside their husbands on the construction site (Barnabas et al., 2009; Dalmia, 2012; Joshi, 1984). Women’s ability to resist their conditions of work is thus constrained due to both their social and familial ties. In a cultural context where they are socialized to comply with ‘norms about female docility, and where their lives may be controlled by the decisions of dominant family members, they may not be able to muster the courage to stand up to powerful actors in the public domain’ (Kabeer et al., 2013: 6). What then are the ways that women resort to, in order to bring about improvements in their conditions of work, and what are the implications of such strategies?

To understand workers’ responses to their situation, the study draws on Scott’s (1985) proposition that labour control influences resistance. Scott (1985: 34) has argued that the nature of resistance of workers is influenced, firstly, by the existing forms of labour control, and secondly, by beliefs about the probability and severity of retaliation. This article discusses how the different forms of labour control and the relationship with employers in such systems of control affect the possibilities of resistance and how such constraints could differ for men and women. Scott’s idea of the ‘moral economy’ is useful for understanding relations among workers and between workers and employers. He argues that workers accept the discipline and control that forms part of the unequal relationship between them and their employers, so long as the latter fulfil their moral responsibility to provide for the former’s subsistence and assist them in times of need. When employers fail to do so, they forfeit any right they have to workers’ continued deference (Scott, 1976). Scott discusses the notion of the moral economy in the context of the peasantry. In the present study, even as workers and contractors had migrated to the city, their social ties of caste, kinship and locality remained important in determining employment relations and in workers’ ability to resist practices they perceived as unfair. I argue in this article that in the absence of formal or legal contracts between workers and contractors, women workers are led to mobilize on their social capital (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 119) ¹ or their valued relations with contractors and co-workers. Social ties constrain workers from resorting to outright resistance. In the context of limited opportunities for employment and its insecure nature, they try to strengthen their ties with the contractors, which usually appear as the only means to ensure some security of work and livelihood. In another sense, however, social ties could also be a potential means of collectivity. Common experiences of work and employment could lead to a consciousness of exploitation and may prompt workers to come together for group or collective action. Women also mobilized social ties with fellow workers to look for more independent forms of employment that had significance for their ability to assert greater autonomy in intra-household relations. Even though women’s actions and responses to their situation did not demonstrate a strong articulation of exploitation in class or feminist terms, their political sense was informed by ideas of humane and moral behaviour of employers and of social relations.

In the sections that follow, work and employment relations in the construction industry are defined and conceptualized. The discussion elaborates on the processes of migration and recruitment of workers and analyses the structural constraints experienced by women. This is followed by the presentation of ethnographic data to understand how women act within these constraints and work around their familial and social relations to bring about improvements in their conditions of work. The discussion goes on to examine the ways through which women, despite their constraints, work to strengthen their own social capital and assert greater autonomy. The conclusion presents an analysis of the conditions which lead women to accept certain practices of employers and resist other forms of work discipline.

Conceptualizing employment relations in the construction industry

Several studies across the world have noted the differential allocation of work and pay to men and women in the construction industry. Chauvet-Urquidi (1997), in her study carried out in Mexico in 1995, noted that women, who were involved in tasks such as hammered concrete finishing, painting and final cleaning processes, were usually paid less than their male counterparts. Heron (1997) also mentions that in Jamaica women generally entered the construction sector without any training and were paid extremely low wages compared to men who were skilled workers. Studies conducted in the 1970s and 1980s also found such inequalities inherent in the organization of work in the construction industry in India. Ranade and Sinha (1975), who carried out research in Delhi and Patna, noted inequalities in tasks and wages for men and women employed on the construction sites of private contractors as well as on large-scale government projects. Based on her fieldwork in Delhi and Calcutta (now Kolkata), Ghosh (1984) points out that although both men and women were largely unaware of their rights as workers, women were most exploited due to reasons of ignorance and lack of organized strength. Barnabas et al. (2009), while studying prospects of empowerment of women construction workers in Tamil Nadu through skill training, found that even when some women learnt skilled work through years of experience in assisting male masons, the contractors never recognized them as such. Social perceptions that considered women as unfit for carrying out skilled work led employers to deny them such work (Barnabas et al., 2009). These studies make important observations on the conditions of work in construction and how the organization of work and employment in this industry rested on and reiterated asymmetries in tasks, positions and remuneration of men and women workers.

Other studies in rapidly growing economies have highlighted the social transformations brought about as a result of large numbers of peasant workers taking up work in the construction sector in big, metropolitan cities. While describing employment relations in the extensively growing construction industry in China, Ngai and Lu (2010) and Swider (2015) note the employer practices of non-payment and withholding pay until the completion of the year-long contract. Since the mobility of workers is restricted to the jobsite, they are unable to expand their social networks, giving contractors control over their work and free time (Swider, 2015: 53). Ngai and Lu (2010) also point out that the state attempts to channel workers’ resistance into its legal system of labour dispute arbitration, but due to its pro-capitalist position, fails to safeguard their rights. They note that common experiences of the difficulties of work and exploitation led to the formation of working-class consciousness, but, like Swider (2015), do not elaborate on how the workers articulate the ‘new working-class subjectivity’ (Ngai and Lu, 2010: 140) that is taking shape.

Studies in India also discuss employment relations typically characteristic of the informal sector. Ghosh (mentioned earlier) notes that since the workers have social ties with the jobbers who recruit them, they trust the latter as someone who would protect their rights and interests. Despite the presence of such ties, there were instances of the jobbers cheating the workers with their money (Ghosh, 1984: 203). Breman (1994, 2010), who has studied production relations in the informal economy of South Gujarat over the past four decades, notes the practice of debt bondage or what he terms as ‘neo-bondage’ in seasonal worksites such as brick kilns, saltpans, stone quarries, construction, etc. As part of this practice, employers make an advance payment to workers to cover costs of life-cycle events like birth, death and marriage or to pay for medical treatment. Even after the debt is cleared, employers resort to the practice of holding back wages, which are paid only when the worker returns to the village after completing the assignment. According to Breman, this practice has replaced agrarian bondage prevalent in pre-capitalist times wherein large landowners had the moral obligation to look after the basic needs of landless labourers bonded to them. He argues that debt bondage is mainly a short-term economic relationship, devoid of the social and cultural aspects of agrarian bondage as the employer is willing to pay an advance to the workers only to lay a claim to their labour power (Breman, 2010). Srivastava (2005), too, points out that such a relationship of bonded labour, prevalent more in manual processes and among contract and migrant labour, denies the employee various freedoms including to choose his or her employer, to enter into a fresh contract with the same employer, or to negotiate its terms and conditions. Dalmia (2012), in her recent study of women construction workers in Delhi, highlights their dependence on not just the contractor/employer, but also on the husband with whom they worked on construction sites. Most of them were neither aware of their wage rates nor the legal requirements their employers were supposed to comply with as their husbands received the wages on their behalf, often blowing a major part on alcohol and leaving little for household expenses. As most women were rendered unemployed in the construction industry after the age of 40, they feared that their lack of skills and education would leave them with few options in the long run (Dalmia, 2012: 255). These studies discuss the relationship of dependence and bondage that workers share with their employers, indicating how structures of patriarchy and capitalism subordinated and constrained workers. It is important, however, as the study presented in this article attempts, to understand how workers, particularly women, exercise their agency within these structures and mediate in their relations to bring about improvements in their conditions of work.

A number of studies in parts of Asia and Latin America (Fernandez-Kelly, 1983; Freeman, 2000; Kabeer, 2000; Mills, 1999; Ong, 1987; Wolf, 1992) have examined how women experience and respond to the processes of industrialization and globalization through their covert and overt acts of resistance. For instance, Ong (1987) illustrates women’s responses towards the work discipline that they were subjected to in the factories and the meanings they gave to their acts of resistance and retaliation. While these studies have looked at aspects of work and family life of women workers in factory settings, there has been limited research on the experiences of women in more informal, fluid work settings such as in construction, home-based employment or in paid domestic work. Employment at construction sites, unlike in the factories, is usually dispersed, informal and embedded in familial relations, making it difficult for workers to come together for collective action. As workers are spread across the urban expanses and move frequently from one construction site to another, a traditional trade union movement is ineffective in trying to organize them. Also, since these workers are migrants, issues of citizenship and insecurities related to the nature of their work and employment discourage them from joining trade unions that may be present. The study presented in this article explores how the nature of informal work organization in the construction industry interacts with patriarchal structures, intensifying existing gender inequalities and further disadvantaging women, and how women in turn respond to their conditions of work.

Methodology

Field research included a semi-structured interview survey, open-ended interviews and participant observation that were carried out over more than 14 months between 2010 and 2011 in a colony of construction workers in East Delhi, a settlement of migrants from the states of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh in India. Some of the women were approached through women workers and fieldworkers/leaders of NGOs already known to me through my prior work with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a prominent organization of informal women workers in India that undertakes various activities related to skill development, micro-finance, education and employment for women. These women, in turn, introduced me to other women workers as well as to male workers and contractors.

After an initial survey of 55 women construction workers, 20 were selected for in-depth study. Not all of the women focused upon for more intense long-term interaction were selected at the beginning; many were chosen in due course as closer relationships developed with them. It was observed that many construction workers selected for study had switched to paid domestic work, which emerged as an alternative when work at construction sites was not available or if they needed to shift to employment that was perceived to offer them greater flexibility to look after their households and children. The women workers interviewed were of different age groups, ranging from 20 to 60 years. They started work at the construction site roughly at the age of 20 and were not retained beyond the age of 40, with some being turned away earlier. This was also a reason why many of them later opted for paid domestic work in upper and middle-class households. The experiences of women regarding their transition to paid domestic work after working as construction workers for several years were not only empirically important, but also addressed the conceptual concerns this research focuses on. A small number of male construction workers and contractors, 12 and five, respectively, was selected using a snowball sampling technique to understand differences in the experiences of men and women.

While the initial interviews with women were for about half an hour, subsequent ones were in-depth, open-ended interviews that lasted an hour or more. While some interviews were carried out at the construction sites, much of the information was gathered through participant observation, through spending time with women in their homes, the lanes outside their houses, at the temple, the community centre, meeting centres and offices of the NGOs. I also accompanied a group of workers for a brief visit to their homes in the rural parts of Madhya Pradesh. Women felt more comfortable to talk to me in these settings, rather than their worksites, and these also provided an insight into the ways of living and the inter-personal interactions of informants. The analysis draws on the life stories and narratives of women, which appear throughout the text. All names used for research informants and interviewees are pseudonyms.

Migration to the city and recruitment in the construction industry

Most women moved out of their village along with their families in search of a livelihood since opportunities in the village were limited by landlessness, insufficient landholdings or inadequate earnings. The majority of them, 45 out of 55, had moved to Delhi more than 15 years ago, while the rest had migrated only in the last 5–15 years. Social networks played a significant role as most migrants were assisted by relatives or fellow villagers in finding work in the city. As they lacked both skill and education, it was easier to get absorbed as manual workers in the city’s extensive infrastructure projects of upcoming residential apartments, shopping malls and sports facilities for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Migrant workers usually worked and lived along with their families on these construction sites, before they could move to more permanent kinds of residential settlements, like the slum colony in East Delhi, where fieldwork for this research was carried out.

Men and women could be recruited to work as construction workers through three different modes. Many of them took up long-term assignments with thekedaars known to them. The latter assisted them in migration and residence in the city and many workers, too, felt morally obligated to continue working for these thekedaars for subsequent work assignments. Given the casual and impermanent nature of their employment, their social ties with these thekedaars gave them a sense of security. A second form of recruitment was based on individual employment contracts with employers who came to hire workers at the labour-chowk (recruitment site outside the colony). These assignments, which were of a shorter duration, usually paid more than long-term assignments with thekedaars. A third form was when some skilled male workers transitioned to function as subcontractors, engaging their wives or other workers to assist them. They were paid by the commissioner of work on piece-rates, calculated on the basis of an agreement on the amount of work to be completed in the stipulated time.

All women construction workers were married and most worked alongside their husbands on the same construction site. It is observed that in most patrilineal communities in South Asia, great emphasis is placed on female chastity and the visible presence of socially approved male ‘protection’ (Palriwala, 1994: 59). A place such as the construction site was considered unsafe for women. Women workers could be vulnerable to sexual harassment and worse. Moreover, a husband could be constantly suspicious of his wife’s fidelity, suspecting her of positively responding to the sexual overtures of male co-workers. However, in the absence of the husband or due to his irregular employment, some women were led to work independently on construction sites, or, more often, as paid domestic workers in upper and middle-class households. Eighteen out of a total of 55 women construction workers surveyed indicated that there were times when they worked separately. A husband and a wife engaged by the same employer or by different employers could be asked to work at different sites and accepted such an arrangement in the course of time. Shifts to independent forms of employment had implications for women’s ability to assert greater autonomy in employment choices and intra-household relations, as will be discussed later. The subsequent sections elaborate on the dynamics of women workers’ relationships with contractors/employers, trade union leaders and fellow workers, and discuss how women workers negotiated these.

Wage rates, work discipline and women’s negotiations

Women were known as beldaars (unskilled workers) and generally assisted the mistri (male mason) by carrying and handing out bricks and other construction materials, preparing the masala (an amalgamation of cement, sand and gravel), picking up and throwing away the rubble and sweeping the construction site. Since no training was required for these tasks, they were regarded as unskilled. Contrastingly, a mistri or a skilled male construction worker could specialize in the tasks of fitting tiles, polishing stone tiles, welding, painting, polishing wood, plastering of walls and floors, and so on. Contractors and male workers interviewed for this study justified the sexual division of labour on the grounds that many women could not carry heavy loads to various floors or learn new techniques and follow instructions meticulously. These ideas worked to construct women as workers incapable – both physically and mentally – of carrying out skilled tasks. The sexual division of labour had implications for the differential payments, designations and social status that men and women workers were entitled to. Wage rates for women ranged from Rs 80 to Rs 180, which was below the minimum fixed by the Delhi Government. ² In contrast, all male construction workers who were interviewed worked as skilled workers and reported their wage as Rs 250–300, which matched the legally stipulated minimum wage. In addition, men earned more by working longer hours and double shifts. Women were not only denied minimum wages, the contractor often also asked them to work beyond their work shifts without an overtime payment. While the contractors may give overtime payments to male workers, particularly when they worked at night, they rarely did so for women workers. Even when women were given some extra payment, they were not paid the legally stipulated double wage rates for overtime work. For instance, if the daily wage was Rs 160, a woman worker would receive Rs 20 for every extra hour of work (calculated on the basis of an eight-hour work shift), instead of the Rs 40 they should have been paid. Contractors argued that since women generally did not work at night, they were not given double wage rates; they were only paid for the few extra hours they put in after the work shift.

A majority of women were members of SEWA, a non-government, women workers’ organization active in the colony. SEWA played the role of a trade union that could attest applications for registration of construction workers with the welfare board of the Delhi government. Apart from this, women linked to SEWA had taken up its various schemes of savings, credit and pensions, and many had enrolled their children for its education and vocational training activities. Though it did mobilize workers to claim their entitlements from the welfare board, it did not address the issues of minimum wages and equal pay for women and men. Some years ago, SEWA organized a skill-training workshop for women workers to enable them to improve their prospects for better-paid employment. Since SEWA did not make any organized attempts thereafter to convince employers to recruit women for skilled, better-paid jobs, it could not ensure an improved economic position for the latter. Even though women workers could not succeed in gaining better jobs, their choices to associate with the organization and participate in the skill training spoke of an assertion of autonomy and their attempts towards shifting the gender division of labour in the construction industry. Women could not demand higher wages due to their devaluation as workers, and then a request for a higher wage could lead to dismissal. Employers preferred male workers to women because the breadwinner ideology meant that the former were under social pressure to be more regular and consistent with work and because a woman’s domestic responsibilities, on the contrary, could call her away. While many contractors cited such reasons, one contractor was known to recruit only women without children or those with older children who did not need constant attention and care. The lack of legal safeguards regulating employment relations in the informal sector further disadvantaged women.

Despite such constraints, women workers did make attempts to ‘negotiate’ their wage rates. Negotiations were mostly in the familial context, when women worked with their husbands; the latter negotiated with the contractor/employer regarding wage rates and sometimes also for commuting expenses. Women engaged independently on construction sites sometimes tried to negotiate higher wage rates on their own. Jamvati, who had taken up independent employment in construction after her husband deserted her, said that, at times, she turned down offers for work where wage rates were lower than her expectations. However, she refrained from doing so when she was engaged by a thekedaar with whom she shared social ties. ‘At least I am assured of long-term employment with the thekedaar’, she said. This was also true in a situation when women workers were denied an overtime payment. Phula told me that she and her husband put in extra hours of work ‘to help out’ the thekedaar, who was her brother-in-law. They hoped that the thekedaar, on his part, would assist them in times of need – when they needed advances or days off from work. Contractors who had familial ties with workers used their personal linkages as ‘subtle mechanisms to exert control’ (Fernandez-Kelly, 1983: 111) and to extract work. Workers’ ability to resist their conditions was influenced by existing forms of labour control (Scott, 1985). Social ties with contractors restrained workers from demanding better wage rates and overtime payments. Yet, they acted within these constraints and sought to strengthen their social ties with their employers. Their actions were largely informed by ideas of the morality of their relationship with the employers. In the absence of formal contracts, the strengthening of social ties was seen as guaranteeing the security of long-term employment and support in times of need. In case of contractors with whom they did not have social ties, women did voice their disapproval of such practices, even though they had to comply with the contractor due to their insecure positions. As a woman worker stated: ‘the contractor never gives us an overtime payment, but we do not have a choice but to continue with the work’.

In many instances, workers’ long-term ties with their contractor prevented them from going against him, even when they had the support of trade union leaders and the labour officer. Puran, a worker-contractor, lost his wife, Jamvati, in an accident at a construction site where she was working alongside him. The employer gave him a sum of Rs 150,000 as compensation. However, SEWA leaders as well as the District Labour Officer, whom Puran approached to submit his application for compensation from the welfare board, ³ informed him that he was legally entitled to a greater amount. Puran decided not to demand further compensation, citing his loyalty to the employer – the owner of an eminent building company, for whom he had worked for the past 15 years. If he asked his employer for more compensation, he might lose his job altogether as well as any pending payments. Thus, Puran’s decision rested on his dependence on the employer in a context of limited employment opportunities. In contrast, Sunita, who lost her husband four years earlier, was not given any compensation. He was electrocuted at a construction site where both of them were working. Though Puran’s long-term relations with the employer also constrained his ability to demand greater compensation, his social capital – the fact that the employer depended on him for his work and could potentially influence other workers and contractors – enabled him to secure some compensation. In contrast, Sunita did not have as much social capital of her own as she was dependent for work and a livelihood on her husband. As an ‘unskilled’ woman worker, who occupied a subordinate position in the hierarchy of labour relations, Sunita was considered incapable of protesting against unjust practices without the support of a trade union or fellow workers. Her father or other male relatives could not intercede on her behalf as the site was too far away in the outskirts of Delhi. Paradoxically, more compensation was given on the death of a woman worker (Puran’s wife) as compared to a male worker (Sunita’s husband), since in that case it was not the loss of a worker, but the relationship between the employer and her husband, Puran, that was more important.

There was no fixed pattern for the payment of wages. The accounts were supposed to be settled once a month, with some contractors giving small amounts of money every week or fortnight as kharcha or expenses to the workers. The contractors justified withholding wages as a benevolent act, claiming that the workers themselves preferred such an arrangement so that they could take their money when they needed it in the future. Many workers also said that since the thekedaar had retained a part of their payment, they could later ask him for it as well as for some extra money for life-cycle rituals or a trip to the village. The hegemonic understanding of the relationship between the employer and workers was mutually constructed, not as a formal relationship privileging the employer, but as a ‘social relationship’ based on ties of caste, kinship and locality, and strengthened through reciprocal obligations. Working with contractors with whom they had social ties gave the workers more security, but many of them were aware of the exploitative nature of this practice. As a woman worker pointed out: ‘The contractor through his practice of retaining a part of our payment ensures that we do not leave him and go away to work elsewhere’. Even as their social ties with the contractor prevented them from putting up collective resistance or outright defiance, their articulations of the unequal and unfair practices of employers represented a social space in which hegemonic ideology was questioned and repudiated (Scott, 1985: 328).

In certain other situations, however, women outrightly defied the work discipline they were subjected to – in spontaneous and individual ways. Durji recounted the day when she started having labour pains at the worksite. She had been employed at a different site from her husband. When she informed the thekedaar that she was unwell and wanted to go to a nearby site where her sister-in-law was working, the thekedaar told her that it was just 11 in the morning and that she could wait till lunch time to be eligible for half a day’s wage. In her pain and desperation, she decided to disobey the contractor and walk towards her sister-in-law’s worksite. This was a spontaneous act of defiance, yet when she recounted the incident to me, her narrative reflected a sense of exploitation and a felt violation of her humanity: ‘I was dying of pain and the thekedaar was bothered about half a day’s work!’. Women rarely reacted against a denial of minimum wages and overtime payments as their actions were constrained by the system of labour control, which rested on social ties between contractors and workers. Yet, an instance such as this went against the morality of the employers’ obligation to assist them in times of need and evoked a strong reaction that disapproved of the work discipline they were subjected to.

Apart from such spontaneous and sporadic acts of resistance, there were also instances when workers engaged by the same contractor got together and resorted to group or collective resistance. Gendabai told me that her husband, and a couple from their neighbourhood, had jointly taken work on a piece-rate basis ‘as partners’ from a contractor. The thekedaar owed them Rs 20,000. Even after repeated requests, when he refused to pay them the amount due, the four of them decided to withhold their labour until their payment was made. Resistance to domination, as Scott (1985: 329) has argued, increases when there is social support from peers. ⁴ Despite the absence of a formal organization, the team of workers could put up collective resistance since, firstly, they all had experienced a denial of their dues; and, secondly, they were neighbours, already connected through ties of caste and kinship, who had collaborated on this work assignment. Even as social ties with contractors constrained workers’ ability to resist domination, ties with fellow workers and shared experiences of work served to strengthen their resistance. This form of protest was rare as none of the other workers spoke of similar instances of collective protest. It was different from the more usual practice of making repeated requests to the thekedaar, a tactic that often failed, eventually forcing many workers to give up the hope of ever receiving their pending payments, who then tried cutting their losses by looking for other work assignments. Yet, it was such small instances of success that reinstated meaning into their paid work, helped them gain greater self-confidence and accumulate social capital.

Workload and absence of paid leave

The working day for women workers could last for 14–18 hours. This included 8–14 hours of remunerated work, in addition to unpaid housework and other productive work. Women domestic workers were, at times, and depending on the nature of the agreement, sanctioned two days off in a month. Construction workers, however, did not get a weekly day off or any paid leave at all. Men not only took unpaid leave to ‘rest’ more often and more easily than women, they also spent time after their work shifts in rest and leisure. Such possibilities were completely absent for women. Employers and workers accepted that men took breaks during the working day for smoking a beedi (tobacco rolled in tendu leaf) or to chat with fellow workers, but found it difficult to imagine such breaks for women. Women, in turn, responded to their situation in different ways.

One of the ways in which women tried to deal with their condition was by giving preference to construction over paid domestic work. Most women construction workers stated that the work was hard. Yet, some of them found it to be less tiring and strenuous than domestic work. Parvati’s husband often took up work assignments on contract (on a piece-rated basis) and she assisted her husband by making the masala and passed the material to him. Since her husband was the subcontractor himself and they were not required to work on time-rates, Parvati was able to have short rest periods. Mira, who worked alongside her husband on a time-rated wage for a thekedaar known to them, pointed out that:

In construction you know that you have to work at the site the whole day and that you would get your wage for the day’s work, so you can rest for a while and then resume work. In domestic work, in contrast, you put in hard labour at every task and in every household you work but get lower returns.

Mira also mentioned that her thekedaar was not constantly present at the construction site and thus they could rest, off and on, during the day. ‘He just comes once in the day and enquires if everyone is doing fine.’ Scott has argued that each form of labour control or payment is likely to generate its own distinctive forms of quiet resistance and ‘counterappropriation’. Also, the nature of resistance of workers is influenced by the existing forms of labour control and beliefs about the probability and severity of retaliation (Scott, 1985: 34). Women who worked alongside their husbands on piece-rates were not supervised by the thekedaar and could therefore rest for short periods. Others, who worked on time-rates, tried to take rests in the absence of the thekedaar. Since their wages were calculated according to the work shift and not the specified amount of work, unlike in the case of piece-rate work, the ‘undeclared and anonymous nature’ (Scott, 1985: 34) of resistance was unlikely to invite any punishment from the employers and supervisors. In contrast, in the case of piece-rate work in construction and in paid domestic work where they worked in multiple households, slowdowns or taking rest often during the work day would have been ‘self-defeating’ (Scott, 1985: 34). The complete absence of paid leave in construction was not seen as a disadvantage since workers felt that they could apply for leave more easily as they were the ones who would lose their wage. The formal relationship with the employer in domestic work and the payment regime of a fixed monthly salary from every household they worked in implied that it was difficult to take leave without the prior approval of the employers.

Besides this, women workers could occasionally manage some recreation. Small gatherings of women domestic workers were a common sight on winter afternoons. Women construction workers also joined these informal conversations and festival celebrations on days when there was no work at the construction site or on a rare day off from work. Women’s choices to manage some rest and participate in community activities showed their ability and desire for pleasure. It also spoke of the importance they gave to maintaining and strengthening ties of kinship and community, which could be mobilized for assistance in times of need and for finding and negotiating work assignments, as discussed in the following section.

Mobilizing social ties and asserting greater autonomy: shifts to independent forms of paid work

Women such as Mira, Parvati (mentioned above) and some others described themselves primarily as beldaars and clearly stated their preference for construction over domestic work. Tracing the work and life of this group of women over a period of time, however, revealed that they, too, had to opt for paid domestic work. Their actions seemed more like a compulsion than an active choice. Yet, over time, they proved to be empowering. Mira had been working alongside her husband, her sister and brother-in-law. After a visit to the village in the summer, her husband took up work with another thekedaar, refusing to take Mira along with him. Nor did he allow her to work on another site on the grounds that the thekedaar might misbehave with her or scold her. The compulsion to earn in order to run her household remained; given the constraints, Mira opted for paid domestic work. Parvati decided to switch to paid domestic work after her husband refused to go to work at the construction site on the pretext of his illness. Later, in order to convince her husband to restart his work, she withheld information about her actual earnings from him. This also enabled her to discreetly save some of her earnings for contingencies. Men’s unemployment, irregular employment or their refusal to take their wives along with them to the construction site could compel women to shift from construction to domestic work. Whereas in construction they were dependent on their husbands or other male relatives for their employment and incomes, paid domestic work emerged as an alternative where they not only negotiated work assignments independently through their social networks of kin, affines, female friends, neighbours and co-villagers, but also received their wages directly and retained control over these. When they were engaged as construction workers, their own social capital was limited and they relied more on the social capital of their husbands. In domestic work, however, they mobilized and strengthened their own social capital. Employment in paid domestic work, though considered as fetching lower earnings as compared to construction work, was a means to an independent income, both to save some money and to ensure subsistence when the husband was unemployed or irregularly employed. This was then a critical factor in enabling women to assert greater autonomy both in terms of employment choices and, as was evident in Parvati’s case, in intra-household gender relations. ⁵ Thus, even as capitalist and patriarchal structures did not change, women’s shifts to other forms of employment allowed them more room for autonomy.

Conclusion

After being neglected as a field of analysis and action, the informal sector has now come to be recognized as a major site of production and employment in India. Yet, those who celebrate its dynamism and flexibility fail to adequately note its tendency to reproduce and deepen existing structural inequalities and vulnerabilities. The discussion in this article contributes to the literature on women’s resistance to subordination in the work sphere by highlighting inequalities in the structure of work relations in the informal sector and analysing women’s agency – its shaping, dimensions, limitations, forms as well its effects and outcomes. The organization of work relations in the informal sector denies women skilled, well-paid jobs and opportunities for upward mobility. They were largely dependent on their husbands for fixing and negotiating work assignments and remained in a more insecure situation of low and unstable earnings, precarious work and unemployment between work assignments as compared to men, who often worked out better-paid assignments through their individual, formal networks.

Women workers’ agency was constrained due to their subordinate positions in the hierarchy of labour relations and patriarchal relations that prevented them from questioning or resisting the work discipline they were subjected to. They had little social capital of their own and relied more on the social capital of their husbands. In the absence of legal safeguards to their employment, they perceived their social and familial ties as guaranteeing them security of employment and income and tried to strengthen these ties. Their agency usually took the form of small manoeuvrings and covert resistance. Their responses to their situation did not reflect a strong articulation of exploitation in class or feminist terms, but as Scott (1976: 85) has argued, their actions were often shaped by ideas of morality and reciprocity in relationships. While they accepted certain forms of labour control on the grounds of their moral obligations towards employers, the perceived violation of their right to receive their subsistence and support in times of need led them to question certain practices. Shared experiences of work and social ties among fellow workers strengthened resistance. In many instances, even as they were compelled to comply with the work discipline they were subjected to, their narratives articulated a sense of defiance and disapproval, indicating that the practices of employers were contested at the level of consciousness (Scott, 1985: 41), if not outrightly defied.

Women’s decisions to switch to a more independent form of employment as domestic workers gave them greater autonomy to strengthen and mobilize their own social network. They then had more control over their incomes and choice of employment/assignments and hence were in a stronger position to negotiate in intra-household gender relations. Even as women’s actions give new meanings and forms to norms and constraints, the structural dynamics rarely change. Yet, it is these small acts of courage and tenacity that may lead to and enable larger structures to change the wider context in which they live and are constrained.