This is an interview with Professor Bino Paul. He is Associate Dean at School of Research Methodology, Centre for Human Resources Management and Labour Relations , School of Management and Labour Studies in Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
Interviewer: Sir, I wanted to ask about the labor situation right now in India, like the only data which people quote right now is C.M.I.E (Center for Monitoring Indian Economy) data. So for a person who is new to this issue, how one can know about, where are the labor force, how they are migrating, where are they?
Bino Paul: As far as migration is concerned frankly speaking CMIE doesn’t give any data because CMIE captures on the basis of cycle the status of labor not migration. So that means there’s hardly any data. The available data is pertinent to labour as such that too in aggregates. So because otherwise the data migration used to be collected by NSSO. The last collection was in the year 2007-08, 64th round, before that census captured the data in 2001. So thereafter there was no major update of migration separately.
Interviewer: Okay, and why has it stopped?
Bino Paul: Okay. That’s a good question. One reason is that it is the Central government’s decision. How much fund to be allocated in this whether they do want to do it, is so discretionary. Right now, there are no hard and fast rules to collect data.
Interviewer: And none of the state governments have done it?
Bino Paul: I think civil society organisations and states might have done it but not in an organized manner. In the sense when a National sample survey conducts a migration survey they define what is usual residence data on the basis of duration of stay of labor. It’s usual migration status. Different definitions are there which classify for example stream of migration body say in-migrant, out-migrant, rural to urban, urban to urban, rural to rural, urban to rural. The principal is rural to urban. So CMIE data doesn’t account for all these constituents of migration.
Interviewer: Okay, so CMIE data only tells about the status of labor?
Bino Paul: No, it’s just not that. Even with respect to the status of labor they are very I would say on the surface. I mean touch the surface not the depth because maybe it’s very expensive for an agency to collect data and to have good sample size. They use good sample size but definition seems to be very narrow, not very detailed, not as detailed as the way it is used by NSSO.
Interviewer: I was just listening to the interview today Rahul Gandhi and Raghuram Rajan was talking about.
Bino Paul: Yeah, there Rajan was referring to CMIE with great regard to its scholarship,I would say, partly ignorant of data, which is reflected.
Interviewer: So, this ignorance, I can see right now. Suppose the state wants to do something for labor like right now. They are at least saying that they want to transfer the entitlements to labourers, like say Bihar government, Jharkhand government, Orissa government. And none of them have data. So it is just randomly anyone who has an Aadhar card with ability to use it, is able to use it. So my question is all this while even the trade unions or the civil society, did not have it? Who has this data of informal labourers?
Bino Paul: I guess the best option where I would say what I recommend is, I am going to have a webinar with some organization, it is KPMG, so I’m preparing material. But I would say it is important to make use of some of the credible data collected in the past. Recent exercise of the government of India to understand labor force was periodic labour force survey,PLFS, this was earlier called NSSO. Now they don’t call it NSSO. PLFS number was last out in 2017-18. It is sort of a migration database pertinent to 2018 and as far as labor is concerned change is very slow. It is even now valid as it pertains to the fundamentals of the market. I mean one year is not enough to change the fundamental structure of the labor market. So you can, I think one can simulate okay. Just have the baseline and simulate upon it.
Plus, I would say it would be useful to use data that was collected ten years ago, 64th round, as well as from the census. I guess these both things are the baselines even today. So one can build some simulation either in a qualitative way or quantitative way. Some simulation exercises can be based upon what you can see. And CMIE data is also useful, I should say. In the sense they keep things alive. I’m not saying that this is useless or something. Useful but not very powerful to draw things. But if you use these three four options, you can get useful credible patterns.
Interviewer: So when we start from a block level, district level, village level. What are the different institutions one can go to access this data or to get labour registered?
Bino Paul: Yeah, see something like block-to-block, district to district that data is there. Census could collect that kind of data. But fundamentally speaking, I would say that is not very useful, because you know migration in India is highly sensitive to gender for example, or other institutional features. If you see women, good chunk of women change their residence that is called migration, they change their residence, then relocate from one district to another district, from rural to urban, which is because of marriage in India. Whereas for men with respect to men smaller than 10 percent of them change their residence from one district to another district or from rural to urban, primarily to seek job and then you know labor force participation rate of women in India is quite low. It’s not even 35%. So I think that’s the problem. Too much microscopic information may not be really useful for migration.
Interviewer: So I was also referring to the point that now there is pandemic or epidemic and the government wants to have to have an immediate solution of announcing affected in giving them financial benefit, monetary benefit using whatever the Aadhar card or jan-dhan account. So many of them are not registered.
Bino Paul: Even without that many things can be done. See only a few states have proper registration mechanisms. Classic case is Kerala, which has non-resident Keralites, NORKA. NORKA has a website you can see. People can register and they do relief operations on the basis of NORKA. NORKA is a nodal agency when it comes to migrants, Keralite migrants. But other states and many other states don’t have this mechanism, but I would say there is nothing to worry about. Because you know, we have ample information about where these people go.
You see Bihar itself. From Bihar there is concentration of traffic, traffic is concentrated towards district States like Delhi, Bombay and Gujarat and southern side Kerala and Tamilnadu. So you can easily make out. Very few Biharis may go to locations like Telangana. Although it’s nearby. But Biharis are smart enough to migrate to get more wages. If wages are on par with what they get in Bihar they may not go. Of course some of them go to Assam some because they may get absorbed in work like plantation, wages are low. But in contemporary day, most of the Biharis go to other parts of India particularly metropolitan cities, even compromising basic amenities provided the wage is relatively high. A few of them are bit unfortunate because they get locked in human trafficking or bonded labor system.
Interviewer: I have seen Biharis right from Ladakh till Nagaland. I have seen them everywhere, even in the border of Myanmar.
Bino Paul: But that’s not a concentration, right. We should talk about clusters. It could easily be managed through information systems like WhatsApp group or others. I mean primarily technology can manage it. The biggest challenge is when people get concentrated in the region. That should have prioritisation and I think for states it’s a matter of different public policy.
Interviewer: And job can also be mapped?
Bino Paul: There is a website called SHRAM migration. They have some kind of application which calculates movement of migrants right based on 2008 data and 2011 census, district to district.
Interviewer: And in all this quality of work is not taken into account, No?
Bino Paul: It can’t be right. That’s because statistical surveys won’t be able to show it. Maximum we can shed light on is wages, but I can tell you one thing. People mostly men move out of place from I to J because of higher wages, but it may be an illusion also. Because monetary wages may go up but in this he may sacrifice quality of life, in the sense drinking water, hygiene. I’m not saying it’s applicable to everyone.
Interviewer: So when the policies are made, these qualities have been quantified in any of these policies?
Bino Paul: Unfortunately when it comes to public policy India is yet to have proper public policy on migrants, so these numbers have seldom been used because first of all there’s no policy. Because India has a policy for labor but not for migrant labor. And that we should understand. It depends, some states have, the classic case is Kerala. Kerala is having concrete policy on migrant workers, for both who migrated from Kerala to other places as well as who came to Kerala. Including the welfare board.
Interviewer: No other states in India has that.
Bino Paul: Some of it may have but in general migrant means neglected people. That is more the usual phenomenon.
Interviewer: Okay and leaving aside the migrant labor right now the labour who are inside the state in all the states. What are the policies for them in such a situation when there is no job. What is the security for them? Like the general policy of Labour within the state. Are they sufficient enough to take care and to provide a security net?
Bino Paul: Not at all because I think there should be proper coordination between states, migrant workers, not individuals alone, but even they have social networks and contractors because it’s a human movement and intermediation by agency and employers as well.
Interviewer: No I’m talking about the non migrants like the labor within the state.
Bino Paul: Oh, yeah. Now the non migrants you mean those who have been there for many years in a place right. they are domicile people. They also need a proper protection policy. Classic case is domestic workers. They are absolutely as vulnerable as any of us expect. Even more vulnerable. A classic case is Maharashtra. Mumbai city is one of the principal engagements for women in domestic workers but most of them are not compensated during lockdown. In absence of compensation are they getting ration? Maybe they are getting it. Perhaps there’s some compensation I’m not Sure. But surely a proper policy framework is necessary.
Interviewer: Is any of the policy actually working? You are citing an example of Kerala for both the policies.
Bino Paul: Kerala has a relatively decent policy framework. Maybe there’s pitful in Kerala as well, but Kerala seems to be ahead of others in terms of labor policies, I would say.
Interviewer: You are from kerala.
Bino Paul: Yeah, I’m from Kerala. Not because I’m from Kerala, I’m critical of Kerala many times but that’s what history says and this is also applicable to the migrant workforce. There are welfare boards. I think in India Kerala has the maximum number of welfare boards.
Interviewer: Welfare board is for any kind of labour?
Bino Paul: Yeah, any kind of labor.
Interviewer: Is it so difficult to register a union or to register someone that today we don’t even have trade unions who have these people registered or members?
Bino Paul: Formally speaking, definitionally speaking it is not difficult but practically it is not easy because I have experienced it. A few years ago I had an opportunity to work with a domestic workers union. Four five of them were thriving in terms of membership and all of a sudden most of them disappeared. I think our politicians were smart enough to make sure this organisation would have a short life.
Interviewer: And were they already under a political party or were they independent?
Bino Paul: That’s what I can’t comment. I have some private knowledge but I don’t know how authentic it is.
Interviewer: No, No I don’t want names I am just asking were they non-political trade unions or…
Bino Paul: They were 100% non political. All of them wanted to have good welfare boards, good life for laborers. They were good people. We should not doubt their background. But then it didn’t last. Some external forces were at play to make sure that this couldn’t go on infinitely or ever.
Interviewer: So what has the state to lose in this?
Bino Paul: I think what I understand about metropolitan cities etc., it is not so easy to form a union and even if they form the union its life is counted because somebody is watching. I’m not saying the government is doing it. There are other forces also. I don’t know if that political capital or social capital has not yet formed. There’s no point in critiquing politicians at this juncture. I think maybe we are in the early stages of having or creating such social political capital.
Interviewer: But if there is union it’s actually good for the state to control the worker or make them work.
Bino Paul: I totally agree with you because coordination through union is the best thing. Often we hear that comment from here and there about the frantic attempt to carry this through social control mechanisms still people don’t obey, had union been there control would have been much easier. It would have been a very interesting coordination mechanism.
Interviewer: And what possibility you think is in unionising according to the theme like you mentioned about domestic workers and there are anganwadi workers. Which has maximum possibility according to you?
Bino Paul: I share with you a context we had a few years ago. Domestic workers were trying to organize themselves in Mumbai. But at that point there were initiatives like self-help group. That was creating some kind of Social Capital. I’m not saying so highly rigorous effort but something was going on, but it got disrupted somewhere. So such institutional mechanisms would have really worked wonders in this time. State could have invested in it. I think the culprit is state mechanisms for I don’t figure a finger at politicians a lot. Our bureaucracy could have also foreseen many of these. Bureaucrats, not all of them, some of them at least sensing something about the union means a bad word for them.
Interviewer: So all this while how and with the reporting of labor in the media was always negative. Like they have made a union a very negative word in the media.
Bino Paul: They could have been a little more careful. They were not, maybe awareness issues also exist.
Interviewer: The minute you utter a word, Union people would say you are doing Unionbaazi and you are trying to become a leader.
Bino Paul: Media people in particular example journalist professionals many of them may not have a clear idea about you know, many of these aspects.
Interviewer: And is it also possible to organize informal laborers within different segments like in the same Union a carpenter can be there a plumber, a barber, a domestic worker.
Bino Paul: It is pretty much possible because say one advantage in metropolitan cities like Mumbai or elsewhere there many migrants as well as domicile people come and in this group relatively low paid informal occupations there is so much camaraderie irrespective of language and culture. For them life is a big struggle. So there is a clear need to have a Union.
Interviewer: And what policy can you think of now?
Bino Paul: In fact I talked about the clear policy once and approached the government. See what I was thinking was something like amalgamation of welfare board as well as direct benefit transfer to a financial clearance mechanism which works through telephone, mobile phone, but it was not accepted. Infact, I gave a presentation to the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra, who came to TISS regarding informal workers.
Interviewer: And then this Union is always class-wise like if there are lawyers and journalists and the workers together in a union, that kind of Union is not possible?
Bino Paul: Yeah, occupation wise unions, it exists elsewhere in the world. Something like haircutters association, Barber’s association.
Interviewer: I’m asking about the mixed one, not only based on class.
Bino Paul: Yeah, I got it. That’s called federation spectre. On paper if you see the stats AITUC, CITU, BMS, they all function in this manner. Actually it is on paper but when it comes to the practical aspects they don’t. It has been in the past but somewhere it got fragmented.
Interviewer: Because we are going to need a lawyer, a journalist in the same union.
Bino Paul: Yes precisely you will be surprised we now are talking about Kerala, right? But Mumbai had all these unionisms that intensively scale that Kerala had at one point of time.
Interviewer: Before Shiv Sena?
Bino Paul: You didn’t learn about trade unionism. I think communist parties were very active at some point of time. Those are socialists who led each package. They were very active at one point of time. Mumbai was the cradle of all you all kinds of unionism. People learnt from Mumbai.
Interviewer: You are in TISS since how long? Is there a teacher’s association in TISS? And what do your student’s do after graduating from TISS? Do they work in existing unions?
Bino Paul: I have been here since 2007. Yes there is a teacher’s union in TISS. You may be knowing we have a Master in Arts course in Globalization and Labour. And there are some seats reserved for people who are working in the Union. So they come from around the world and states of India to study here. After graduation some of them have joined unions and are working in Unions affiliated to different political parties.
Interviewer: Higher education actually increases chances of migration including your students.
Bino Paul: It again depends upon gender too. After marriage there are more chances of it. After university education people expect higher wages which they will not get in smaller cities and villages.
Interviewer: How do you think the people going back to their villages with the inter caste relationship, and caste discrimination which is more visible now?
Bino Paul : They will not sustain. hundred percent I can say that. And that would be another public policy challenge in the migration, migration back to the village.
Interviewer: I think many of these labourers will come back. Villages are still the hub of caste discrimination in many ways.
Bino Paul : Yes once this stage is over, the pandemic stage is over, the next stage will be economic survival. That will be the question. Of course people would do their best to come back but it will not be easy. Would there be enough trains? These questions are there, these questions are hanging..
Interviewer: I am asking about the caste equation in all this because when I asked people in Mumbai who also have the savings they will say that I don’t get respect in my village why I will go back now they are being forced to go it is another thing but still they don’t have respect and dignity in their native place
Bino Paul : I agree I agree. that’ll be very very much there, I don’t know. I can’t foretell things right now. It is very tough what is going to happen is scary. Because here in the absence of labour when the workforce leaves the government is going to liberate the investment and which will lead to automation. It will be, it will not be a big surprise. You will see the robots are coming. Currently the robot labour ratio in India is the lowest. In about 10000 workforce we don’t even have one robot. On the other hand, in South Korea, a highly industrialized state, the robots work ratio among the 4000 workforce is 600 robots.Ok.
So you liberalize financing on robots and artificial intelligence. Assemblies will move to robots. That is going to be another threat because the digital economy will not be questioned by any of our politicians now.
Interviewer: But, this laborers will always go back because they don’t have options in their home town.
Bino Paul: Yes, they will go back but unless there is demand for labour who will absorb them? Because now what is going to happen, if the investment is going to be increased, interest rates will be lowered in the post Covid scenario and I am sure that the government will have more digitalization trials. So many labour intensive sectors will become capital intensive, like Surat is an example, Mumbai is an example.
Firms which were using cheap labour, given with very cheap capital coming. They will now have cheap robots. Cheap robots in the sense little expensive over at this point but over the years to save more money. That will create a crippling effect on the economy because the whole macroeconomic of consumption will be affected because there is no money order in the economy and the downstream scenario and there is no social and economic innovation like getting rid of the caste system, caste barriers, all these things. Unless that happens the economic activity will not have a facelift.
Interviewer: You also said that there might be an illusion to come to Mumbai or Delhi, even to live in a worst case situation. yeah a bit of illusion is out there.. You think this situation can have a positive impact with the people will think about what they were doing table look for the opportunity in their native place?
Bino Paul. I agree I agree. Yes because the day will start questioning the work life balance issues. Forget that but health facility, sanitation facility, apart from the wages. I am sure but the labour intensity is going to go down and therefore unemployment will show like heaven joblessness.
Interviewer: The case of the tribes, who most of them own the land. Will they have less problems regarding this because they have the land in their villages?
Bino Paul: To an extent yes. To some extent it is doubtful because their young generation is living in the city and are used to different consumption patterns. Tribal girls and boys who are between the age group of 18 to 24 or 16 to 24, they are accustomed to the contemporary consumption pattern. They are not dependent on the wages as labour but when they go back to their land, if they abandoned the consumption pattern, they can have sustained life because I think the sustained life should be promoted because the consumption pattern that cannot sustain health is not the best. So I think the system green economy should find a voice in this stream.
Interviewer: if you read the newspaper Financial Express business standard Economic Times their narrative does not include this quantification of all these qualities of life which is sustainable.
Bino Paul : They won’t and I will not blame them because the writers, scribers who do this business of writing are not accustomed to all these issues you have raised. They may not be a conscious being as such. They are not likely to talk about all this..
Interviewer: But this narrative is not going to reach the young generation who are learning business planning, economics who are studying in a very good Institute.
Bino Paul: I agree with you but eventually they have to face it. Because even if you are a good student from a good Institute you can’t aspire for earlier days of elite cushion jobs. That is gone forever because the organisations have changed in this time, post covid. So you studied in an IIM, and landing in the cushion job those days are going to go away. Now, that Stark reality will be there in front of everyone.
Interviewer: And in the very same interview, Mr Raghuram Rajan gave an example of IT industry as a very successful one in the case of India do you think, it was?
Bino Paul: Yes, people gave credit to it. And I should not fall short of praising it but it has the fundamental fallacies because it does not generate even one crore jobs. One can say it had a good multiplier effect but I doubt.
Interviewer: Before I was working in the IT sector in Bangalore. I heard around the electronic city, IT professionals were beaten up by the local people twenty years before. It has also happened around Greater Noida where the rent of the house and the standard of living became unaffordable for the local people because of special economic zones coming, which acquired their land. The rise in crime and IT growth mode of development went hand in hand.
Bino Paul: However, it is a mixed bag. At one side it helped India because it tapped into the system otherwise the massive crisis in higher education in the last 15-20 years has been full-fledged. IT industries provided all these business schools, engineering colleges some solace in terms of engaging youth but it won’t do the same now.
Interviewer: So all these twenty years they were engaged in the things that were not necessary. Now with all these Engineering Colleges which were opened in Tamilnadu, in Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, they were like mushrooms., without the need and demands of engineers.
Bino Paul: But it cannot continue.Yes, I agree but now that won’t count but for sometime that was seen as a booming kind of science. But not any longer, you cannot count on this sunrise sector, it is not no longer a sunrise sector.
Interviewer: But was it even then, when it was like a business model of running Engineering Colleges?
Bino Paul: Not at all, not at all. That was like a cronyism. Someone who had some piece of land, someone had black money or even white money whatever they put this resources together and created an institution.
Interviewer: So know now when you are saying it was that time shining and booming. Was it in terms of business for few people or it was like that in the media it created that perception?
Bino Paul : You know even our IITs were not very rosy professions back in early 90s. You trained someone in biochemistry, biomedical and there was no place for them to be placed because the industry could not absorb them here, because of less research and development infrastructure.
Interviewer: I was doing biotechnology and I was left in India to join IT, I could not migrate.
Bino Paul: Because of that the only softening effect which happened was absorption of these people in TCS, Wipro, Infosys at least. I am not saying that it was a solution for anything or anyone but it is no longer a solution. It was a Bonanza for the lower middle class, middle class for some extent.
Interviewer: It was Bonanza or it was a big illusion which was maintained for a long time?
Bino Paul: It was an illusion and still we are not free from that illusion. I think because of economic theories like human capital in the world, problems persist. See, Rajan is a wise economist but they have to get out of the world view of the problem. Because of the economic theories of the world about human capital, they think that if you invest in humans and get out the return from them, the university system, major University system runs on this logic. It is not easy to get rid of it.
Interviewer: The narrative setters in economics are there, like the Nobel Prize winner Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflin are now. Do you agree with their technique of randomised controlled trial, and which has been projected as one of the poverty alleviation mechanisms? Can it be universally applied in diverse countries like India?
Bino Paul: I am least appreciative of their thing because that was not really their research. It was not really about education as a right and a public good. For India, we cannot really deviate from the notion that education is a public good, at least semi public good. Some private elements will exist so, practically at least semi-public goods.
Interviewer: So their research got takers because they also have the same view of the world economy, human as a return value of the investment?
Bino Paul: One reason why it is happening is because the anglo-saxon intellectuals command more power in these institutions. In India but that is going to go away. I guess now a lot of people have started questioning it.
Interviewer: Even if there is a problem, crisis emerging out of their policy, they continue to suggest the same solution again and again.
Bino Paul: I think they are good people but they have to stick with that worldview.
Interviewer: In India, do you see policies changing for labour very soon? Will there be any labour policy for migrants?
Bino Paul: That part I don’t know. For that may be I am a little bit confused. Actually I don’t have any wisdom to comment on it. In, next six, seven months there will be massive change of engagement of people because some of the things which I mention like massive digitalization of industrialisation against human engagement. So the two contrary forces will engage and you can visualise the crippling of social balance.
One of them is focused on massive digitalization because the finance will become very cheap because of the investment. In the time of calamity disaster or pandemic you have not the same banking system. You have to loosen the interest rates. So who gets the benefit? Some of the well established people and for migrants return will not be very easy.
I don’t know, my feelings should not come true. If digitalization happens on that scale, it will be a big social crisis and I don’t know. What do you think? One has to closely watch the people who are exporting, they cannot wait for labours to return.
Interviewer: One good part, I can think about is there can be a massive absorption in the rural sector. You should keep in mind that it is embedded with the caste system and the traditional power struggle will transform. Corona has made everybody ‘untouchable’ in some ways. But once it goes away that feeling will come back too. The power has to be given to these labourers in terms of ownership of land or they need agency like the Union.
I am in Varanasi right now and there were some incidents reported where the lower caste and the Nomadic tribes are actually getting beaten up for not working in the agricultural land. So on one side there is the state with their police and on the other side there are upper caste land owners who are forcing them to work and if they refuse, they don’t have the choice, other than getting beaten up. So police which is also an upper caste institution combining with the land owners, are increasing the violence.
Bino Paul: It is not working because that’s social cohesion is what we need. That human engagement is grossly missing. This is also an opportunity for unionising a lot of people.
I fully agree that will be the biggest social innovation. Today in the interview the discourse which Rahul Gandhi created with Raghuram Rajan was about decentralization where the discussion went to the Cohesion and cohesiveness of the society, in fact not directly rather indirectly. Social change that word came rather than economic change.
Interviewer: I was surprised to see Rahul Gandhi making sense of these words. In these areas there have been people from diverse identity joining Congress. And he is talking from the wisdom of these ground cadres, I guess.
Bino Paul: I don’t know. But whether the Congress will take up this as a big challenge or not? If they take it, it will be a big thing. Any political party can take this. This is a great harvesting time for political parties. The central dialogue is about economic structure and economic change, if someone talks about social change then it will have some direction.
Interviewer: I don’t know which media platform will publish his interviews. They have been ignoring him all these times.
Bino Paul: I would say that the digital platform can emerge as a very interesting space other than books and journals. But those platforms which are recorded as genuine can signal its genuinity in it. It can easily disseminate, it’s about dissemination right now rather than prestige of Publication.
Interviewer: Again, why has the Union not worked well for informal sectors before? What has been the problem?
Bino Paul: No that is not fully right. In India, sometimes back efforts like that have been there. Street vendor Association many of them still exist now. At some growth, it gains faction. So it should not grow too much, there should be a maximum limit. That is a different thing, it is like a pandemic 10 members, hundred members, thousand members, it is like a geometric progression. Every geometric progression the leadership questions become different. But with geometric expansion you have to question yourself, you have to democratise. In the leadership you have to make changes, in the structure too. That is a tough challenge. Leadership is not a trivial issue as far as trade union is concerned and trade union latest are known for their autocratic tendency, despotic tendencies. Founder thinks his or her wisdom is the best.
Interviewer: Are there any horizontal or non-hierarchical models of trade unions like co-operatives?
Bino Paul: The structure of co-operative is completely different from trade union. The non-hierarchical way of functioning of union is not very much experimented. If you have a hybrid model mode of functioning, cooperative democratic way of functioning with Union, I will say that it is not that bad. Classic case I can give you is about Indian coffee house. You know about it?
I have been to Indian Coffee House many times but I don’t know the story.
Indian coffee house is outcome of unionism and cooperative cooperation. And unionism as an enterprise it is fully owned by workers. With the Cooperative of workers and union it shows the fusion of economic, political and social change. One has to really visualise in this way with a little more ideological clarity.
If you combine the traits of cooperative and union, ownership is where everyone, every member is an owner in the system. And when everyone is immersed in it then only it is going to sustain. If I say that there is non monetary benefit for everybody, like scholarships for their children. I am really doubtful about the incentive system that’s why I doubt Abhijit Banerjee’s and Esther’s work.
What I have studied, it is not published yet about Indian coffee house, through one of our Phd. student. What we observed was that Indian coffee house was founded in early 40s. It was owned by a British person but post independence that person left and organisation was left untouched. So the union leader, who was the opposition leader, A. K. Gopalan(AKG), organised the workers of the Coffee Board, began a movement and compelled the Coffee Board to agree to hand over the outlets to the workers who then formed Indian Coffee Workers’ Co-operatives and renamed the network as Indian Coffee House.
He organised people and formed the union but he made sure that every worker is also the owner. In Indian Coffee House when you enter into profession you have to work as a waiter initially with Maharaja cap. Based on your training and your time, you are taken to different processes.Irrespective of the position of you in the hierarchy you have some stake in the company, which is run using cooperation principle, that is called human dignity.
Compliance to human dignity that is different from incentives. Incentive means tangible and intangible. However good incentives are, incentives ultimately generate a lot of bad politics. So that is good, provided you want abnormal growth of your structure but abnormal growth itself is an illusion right?
Interviewer: How can you have a sense of ownership for different classes of people? They have a different understanding of ownership ? Does non monetary benefits, which can be different, be part of that strategy of unionising, mixed class, domains of people?
Bino Paul: There are many tools available to do that. The classic case is the sustainable development goal framework. We are criticizing it. But it talks about zero hunger to partnership. If human collective can lead to a myriad of this outcome, one by one while communicating to stakeholders, it comes under impactful outcomes because now we will be moving into a sustainable development society, where sustainable development is the key issue with society. It is much more than monetary success and targets. It looks abstract now but some systems practice it.
Before starting a union there is no harm in learning from the system which are already in place in some organisations. Investing a little more time in this understanding of the systems I think is a good idea.
Indian Coffee House as a brand operates as any commercial system and competes with them. The Mondragon company based in Basque region of spain is also owned by workers similar to Indian coffee house. It is into different activities. I am not saying it is a hundred percent success but profit is not the sole yardstick of success, when you have a human enterprise.
Interviewer: I remember going to Indian coffee house with my parents for Dosa. And it was always a nostalgic positive feeling. Feeling of peace and shanti in that space.
Bino Paul: Because of human dignity. Human dignity is the core principle. They may not have huge profit but they sustain. That’s all. That’s all.
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