SRINAGAR, INDIAN-ADMINISTERED KASHMIR – When Ghulam Hassan Sheikh was 40 years old, he began everyday the same way – he picked up his twig broom and set out to clean the streets of Srinagar, the capital of India’s northernmost state of Jammu and Kashmir. Working as a sweeper for the Srinagar Municipal Corporation, an organization responsible for cleaning the city streets by hand, Sheikh spent his life working 12 hours a day – from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. – with only a short break in the afternoon. Sheikh and the other street sweepers worked every holiday, including the holy Muslim Festival of Eid. They also worked when they were ill.
When others left their homes to head for work, Sheikh had already been working for hours – sweeping the streets and cleaning sewers with a broom and shovel. The job of a street sweeper is a difficult one. They have to keep the open drains alongside the streets running so that the waste water from toilets and kitchens does not spill over. And so it went, Sheikh spent many years of his life straining his back to clean excrement from the streets, inhaling dust from passing cars and working long days with no rights and little pay. Sheikh earned 350 Indian rupees per month, about $7, for the hard, menial labor.
That was more than 20 years ago. Today, the world of a street sweeper looks much different.
Mumtaza Bano, 40, a modern day sweeper, works for only six hours each day. She earns 12,000 rupees per month, about $250. With better pay and improved hours, Bano says she is able to manage her family duties with ease. These changes are thanks to the persistence of one man who worked for decades to establish the first Street Sweepers Union.
But those changes have not come about easily.
The street sweepers at the SMC say that one man is responsible – Sheikh Mohammad Syed. Though not a sweeper himself, Syed founded the Municipal Workers Union in 1993 and has fought to establish and preserve their rights ever since.
At the bottom of social strata, sweepers lives are difficult. Until Syed launched the union in 1993, more than 1,400 sweepers were temporary or contract laborers who had no employee rights or benefits. Sweepers could be fired for being late or absent from work for just one day if they did not find and pay for their own replacement. At work, they had no facilities or even a place to rest on the Srinagar Municipal Corporation premises.
With Syed as their leader, the sweepers of Srinagar strengthened their union and began to press the administration for reforms. Over the last 16 years, Syed has transformed the work of a street sweeper from a menial, dangerous job to a humane and safer one.
A Movement Finds a Leader
Syed, now 54, came from a business class family and joined the SMC as junior assistant in 1979 after finishing his secondary school. Popular among his colleagues, Syed quickly became a member of the union, which did not include street sweepers, and was elected president of the Municipal Employees Union in 1981.
“I fought hard on various issues, led strikes and was even arrested,” says Syed of his first union experience.
But the plight of the sweepers grabbed his attention and, after several requests, he agreed to lead an effort establishing the first-ever sweepers union.
“I was warned by my colleagues and officers not to take up their issues. They said that I was creating a problem for them,” says Syed, who braved opposition from the staff, administration and relatives that feared he would become associated with the sweeper class.
All members of the union hail Syed for bringing about a change in the system and in their own lives.
“He has been a teacher and a trainer who has guided us so far. Whatever we can do now or have achieved so far is because of him,” says Ghulam Mohd Solina, the current president of the sweepers union. Solina added that because Syed did not belong to their class, his participation was an added source of strength for their movement.
“They had no organization,” Syed says of the sweepers. ”They used to gather at the gate of the SMC office and the clerks and officers treated them like untouchables and didn’t allow them to stand near them in the office. Sitting on a chair was a distant dream.”
Syed built the union from the ground up and quite literally had to start from scratch. His first fight was to secure an office room on the premises of the SMC for the union members to sit, take breaks and manage union affairs.
Stories of Abuse Provoked Change
Fayaz Ahmad Sheikh, 37, is now the vice chairman of the union. He sits in a chair in the union office with 30 of his sweeper colleagues, but he says the memories of the “dark days” – when he was not even allowed to sit in a chair – have not faded.
Sheikh struggled against his supervisors for years. He said he was once fired by his supervisor for coming to work wearing Khan dress, a traditional garment with a long shirt and pants. “Will you work or just look at your clothes?” Fayaz recalls his supervisor saying to him, gesturing to his nice clothes. Fayaz’s protests fell on deaf ears and he remained out of a job for six months until a sympathetic official rehired him.
The supervisor has since retired and could not be located for comment.
In another instance, Fayaz Ahmad, 20, was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He was not given leave from his sweeper duties when he was admitted to the hospital. “Send your mother as a replacement, and then can you go,” Solina recalls, adding that the boy later died.
Two years after the union was formed, Syed and the other workers took on the largest issue of all – compensation.
Realizing that poverty was a major issue hindering the social and educational progress of the sweepers, Syed set to work lobbying for the regularization of their services with the government, knowing this could secure better wages and financial security.
The sweepers union took up the issue with officials in the state government. After nearly a year of agitations and strikes, the government passed an order granting permanent status to all contingent employees of the state, including some 800 sweepers. Regularization provided the sweepers with a decent salary, a small medical allowance, holidays, vacation days, maternity leave, a pension and other opportunities previously granted to state employees.
Health Care and the Dangers of Street Sweeping
Health issues remain a major concern as the sweepers continue to work in harsh conditions. They are prone to respiratory and skin diseases and lack the protective gear necessary to prevent physical injury. The union went to work on its next battle to secure uniforms, gloves, masks and boots for the sweepers. With little resistance, workers said, they were soon outfitted with the protective gear they had longed for.
“The union ensures that whatever is supplied is of good quality,” Solina confirms.
For a short time, the union had also negotiated a weekly check-up for all sweepers at a special health center that was opened for them in the municipality building. Unfortunately, the health center is now defunct due to high staff turnover and internal misuse. The union is pressing to reopen the dispensary, as well as ensure the sweepers a weekly check-up by a doctor.
A Final Push for Education
After much success over the last decade, Syed and the union decided the time had come to take on another major issue – education.
The rate of literacy among the sweepers has traditionally been very low. As the union chairman, Syed began encouraging education for sweepers and their children.
“I helped them in getting scholarships from the Social Welfare Department. There were people coming to me and saying, 'Don’t do this. You are creating a problem. If they get educated we will have a dearth of sweepers soon,' ” Syed recalls.
“A sweeper never got any promotion earlier, even if they were educated. Today a sweeper has reached to the level of a ward officer,” says Solina, adding that this too has been made possible only by the efforts and guidance of Syed.
Fayaz Ahmad, a young shopkeeper living in a colony established by the union, says “Things are slowly changing as education is coming. More and more of us are getting educated, which will definitely have an impact.”
According to the Health Officer of SMC, Dr. Reyaz Ahmad, the Srinagar city is spread over 330 square kilometers and has a population of 1.4 million. The city produces 400 metric tons of solid waste daily, which is cleaned by 2,200 sweepers instead of the 6,000 who are needed. “We have written to the government for recruitment of more sweepers and the process is underway,” says Ahmad.
Ahmad has positive words for the union, “The sweepers are committed and work very hard. Then union has succeeded in bringing a positive change in them as well as their conditions.”
There still are problems, like the health hazards of their job and consistently being overlooked by the government, but the union keeps fighting.
Though officials say sweepers have been provided with some safety upgrades, like gloves and masks, there are other simple demands the union seeks. Brooms with long handles remains the primary request, since the short-handled brooms have caused disc problems and long-term back pain for many sweepers.
Overall life has changed for better for the sweepers of Srinagar.
“We have land, houses and can get loans from the banks as well,” says a smiling Fayaz, admitting that they were not aware of their rights earlier. Still, all seem to agree on one thing – their rights and livelihoods are dependent on the continued success and good governance of the union.