The death of a migrant worker from India on 19th June after he was seriously injured by farm machinery two days earlier, has once again brought the spotlight on the condition of Indian migrant workers in foreign countries. The victim was Satnam Singh from Moga district in Punjab who had migrated to Italy with the hope of earning and saving some money to support his aging parents in India. He was working on a wrapping machine in a farm in the Latino district of Italy near the capital Rome, when he met with an accident. He lost an arm and was grievously injured when he got pulled into the machine. Instead of organizing for medical assistance, the owner of the farm dumped Satnam Singh in a garbage dump to bleed to death.
Farm workers in Italy have reported that such accidents are taking place all the time. However, most of these do not get reported because many of the migrant workers do not have a legal status in the country. Farm owners hire large number of such migrant workers in the harvesting season. These workers are very vulnerable because they do not have legal status and are not in a position to assert their human rights.
They are made to do long hours of work at wages that are far below the legal minimum wage. Often their passport and other documents are confiscated by the farm owner or their employment agent, which makes it very difficult to lodge a complaint or seek medical treatment even if they could get out of the farm. They are virtually slaves and have to face very oppressive and exploitative conditions of work, with the fear of deportation constantly hanging over their heads. When these workers get injured in accidents, many of the farm owners consider them a liability and do not want to bear the expenses of their treatment. The owners throw them out of their farm and want to have nothing to do with them. This is what was done to Satnam Singh, except that he was bleeding profusely and was so badly injured that he could not even move on his own.
Satnam Singh’s case came to light only because other farm workers revolted and went on a protest. They could see that Satnam Singh was sure to die unless immediate help was provided to him. They struck work and raised an alarm, which forced the authorities to airlift Satnam Singh to a hospital in Rome. However, it was too late and Satnam Singh succumbed to his injuries soon after he reached the hospital.
The conditions of migrant workers came to light in the international media, in this case, when the workers’ unions in Italy decided to take up the issue. They organised a big demonstration on 22nd June in Latina district. Many farm workers including from India participated in this demonstration. The issue was picked up by the media and social media, which prompted the Italian Prime Minister and the Indian Foreign Minister to make some public statements.
The public outcry led to some action against some of the farm owners. The Italian police arrested the owner of the company that owned the farm where Satnam Singh worked. In Verona district of Italy, police apprehended two owners of agricultural farms. 33 Indian migrant workers were rescued from their farms and a large amount of cash was confiscated. It is estimated that violent exploitation of migrant farm workers is rampant in Italy. In Latina district alone, there are thousands of Indian farm workers. An Italian insurance agency, INAIL has reported that fatal farm accidents have been rising in recent times and there are 268 death reported in just four months of this year!
The question is, why are Indian workers compelled to leave their homes and accept such exploitative and oppressive working conditions in foreign countries?
Lack of job opportunities in India make workers look for opportunities elsewhere in the world. There are recruiting agents who paint a rosy picture of life in other countries. Many workers, who are fed up with exploitative conditions of work in India, decide to sell their meagre assets or take loans from their families and friends, to try their luck in other countries. They soon realise that the conditions of work are not all that rosy there either. Having spent their money on trying to get to a job and not aware of the reality in those countries, many workers become enslaved by their employers or agents.
The capitalist system cannot grow unless it intensifies the exploitation of workers. This is a phenomenon everywhere in the world where the capitalist system exists.
In India too, the exploitation and enslavement of workers is increasing at a rapid rate. The workers in all modern industries, whether it is Amazon warehouses or a state-of- the-art I-Phone manufacturing facility in South India, virtually live like slaves. The capitalist owners extract maximum surplus from their labour and exploit them to the bone. They hire them when they are 18 to 25 years old, when they are most productive, and throw them out afterwards. The extremely oppressive conditions of work allow them to barely recover from the previous day’s toil. The result is that even when they are still in their youth, they start suffering from various ailments arising from their conditions of work. Similar oppressive conditions are being created for workers of all other sectors. All regular jobs are being transformed into work done under a contract system, in which workers are forced to work for long hours without receiving even the statutory minimum wage.
The only way to ensure that the exploitation of the working class is ended is for the workers to unite and take forward the struggle for overthrowing capitalism and establishing their own rule. The working class will be able to liberate itself and all other toiling sections of the people, when the capitalist class is deprived of the means of production and these are brought under social ownership. This will make it possible to change the motive of production from “the maximisation of capitalist profit” to “the securing of the maximum satisfaction of the constantly rising material and cultural requirements of the whole of society.”