The World Employment and Social Outlook (WESO) 2023 has presented a glaring picture of their miserable conditions while pointing out the problems including the existing anomality in the very Indian definition of ‘essential work’ that led to even non-recognition of the essential workers and thereby their safety and health are compromised. Numerous of them are even unpaid and underpaid and subject to exploitation.

While subsistence farming may seem outside the scope of key work as it concerns family provision, it is important to bear in mind that, in practice, workers classified statistically as ‘subsistence farmers’ often engage in market activities, particularly during harvest time when they sell excess produce, in addition to recurringly performing work as agricultural labourers or as homeworkers in goods production. These activities are critical for securing their livelihoods, however, subsistence farmers typically blur the lines between agricultural production for self-consumption and market orientation.

Moreover, subsistence farmers and agricultural labourers can grow in number during times of economic downturn as the sector often acts as a refuge for return migrants, as seen during COVID-19 lockdowns in the country where mor than 11 million urban migrants returned to the countryside. While not all of these workers turned to agricultural works, many did, given the need to maintain their livelihoods in absence of robust social protection system. A similar outcome could be found among street vendors (retail), as many workers who lost their jobs during the pandemic turned to street vending as a means of earning a living.

The informal workers, due to informal nature of their work, often fell into a grey area. For example, during the pandemic, even COVID-19 mandate overlooked the essential workers. Recognition as essential worker is a key in order to guarantee their right to work, such as during pandemic, but several works are not recognized as essential work and therefore the workers are not recognized as essential workers. A glaring example is the status of waste pickers (0.1 per cent of urban employment, 2.2 million in 2018-19) in India, who even by 2022, were still waiting to be recognized as key workers. Moreover, waste pickers are also exposed to discrimination and violence, especially when they belong to religious or ethnic minorities or certain castes. A survey conducted in Ahmedabad highlighted that social exclusion and violence tend to affect women waste pickers when working in areas occupied by residents and businesses perceived to be of higher castes and class statuses. Informal workers still face trouble working, as implementation relied on the discretion of the local authorities.

Temporary employment in cleaning and sanitation often occurs through subcontracting, with contractors in turn relying on temporary labour. Municipalities hire sanitation workers through subcontractors, use temporary contracts and keep renewing temporary contracts after each contract ends instead of giving permanent jobs to workers. In India, although there are several court decrees which state that municipalities should give permanent jobs to sanitation workers instead of renewing their temporary contract, the problem has not been fully addressed.
WESO 2023 said that in cleaning and sanitation, India is a prototypical example of wage inequalities between temporary and permanent workers. It is estimated that the wages of cleaning workers with a temporary contract in India are less than half those of their permanent counterparts, and below levels that can sustain their basic needs. Such temporary cleaners and workers are not entitled to employment benefits such as an annual pay rise, paid public holidays, bonuses and severance pay.
Essential workers faced physical risks of illness. For example, large number of health workers and also Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) workers were not provided essential protective equipment such as PPE during the pandemic. Workers within health institutions – doctors, nurses, orderlies, cleaners, etc, and also those working or active outside institutions, reported insufficient PPE provisions.

The work of the community health workers known as ASHAs increased substantially after the pandemic. They have been serving on the front line, and were responsible for tracing, testing, delivering medicine and sometimes food, and answering distress calls. Once the immunization programme began, they were responsible for keeping records of those who received the vaccines and motivating people to get vaccinated. Through this period ASHAs also continued with their routine tasks of following antenatal and postnatal care, monitoring infant health and so on. They even suffered stigma during the pandemic as potential carrier of the virus. However, though appointed by National Health Mission, and awarded by WHO with the title Global Health Leaders, they are still waiting to be recognized as employees. They are underpaid and overburdened with work. An ASHA worker in Delhi explained how heir union needed to “create a huge ruckus” in order to receive back pay.

However, essential workers in informal sector generally do not have strong union and therefor they suffer because their health and safety measures were compromised. Some unions, though made efforts to extend safety and health precautions as in the case of security guards.

Street food vendors have even suffered harassment and violence by the police despite their official recognition as “essential workers” in government decrees. The worst cases recounted in Bihar where interviewees said hos some farmers who had gone to their fields during the first lockdown to harvest their wheat and maize crops, were beaten up by the police, as well as the difficulties they had with the police in transporting their goods to market.

Street vending is commonly abused by authorities. WESO 2023 said that it is a common problem in India, as the studies show that many workers are compelled to pay informal fees to local officers or police in order to continue operating. Despite being classified as key workers, they were subjected to harassment by police during the pandemic.

Informal, own-account workers had also turned to collective actions as a means to voice their demands. For example, in the State of Jharkhand, petty good traders had to protest the closure of a weekly market until they received consent from the municipal administration that it could re-open.
Working during the pandemic placed multiple demands on key workers, including risk and fear of contagion, heightened work intensity, family separation, restricted social interaction, adverse social environment and, for some, especially informal workers, financial stress. The suffered sever job strain that worsened mental health of many among key workers. Almost half of the healthcare professionals reported experiencing burnout.

During the pandemic, operation and sales of key enterprises suffered. Supply chain disruption cause even declining of prices of crops. Cardamom farmers in Kerala reported a dramatic drop in price from Rs3000-4000 per kg to Rs1000-1500 per kg. At the same time, the prices of fertilisers and pesticides used in the production of cardamom rose by 25 per cent. As a result, farmers reported fall of 30 per cent in their income, which caused may to exhaust their savings and take out loans. The farmers also reported problems with finding labourers as migrant labourers from the state of Tamil Nadu were unable to cross state borders, and even local labourers had difficulty reporting to work.

Essential workers everywhere were is short supply in the entire supply chain of all goods and services, including transportation and shipment. Workplace safety and health measures were found lacking for many essential workers. The problem was more pronounced when workers are not directly employed by the organization to which they provide their services. Their contractual arrangement is considered multi-party or triangular. Cleaning and security are commonly outsourced and other key occupations are routinely staffed with agency workers, especially warehousing, but also increasingly in healthcare. The studies indicate that agency and subcontracted workers (if not highly skilled) have limited career prospects, fewer benefits and suffer wage penalties. Also, by not being employed by the user firm, they are less able to make their voices heard in the workplace and are not covered by the collective bargaining agreements of the user firm. For example, nurses employed through agencies did not feel that they could be as vocal with their demands as nurses employed with permanent and bilateral employment arrangements.

Share of low-paid workers among key employees in India is about 23 per cent. Share of low-paid workers among key food systems was employees is about 67 per cent. Moreover, they need to work for long hours. India is among the three countries in the world where the unexplained gap in wages is negative, meaning that factors other than the human capital actually reduce (rather than increase) wage gap between key and other employees.

Sector of employment and also contractual arrangements determine the working conditions of key workers. For example, nurses at public hospitals employed through contractors do not receive the same wages and paid leave entitlements.

Gender wage gap among key food system wage employees in India is 43 per cent. In addition, in many instances, women working in the food systems sector are unpaid, which accounts for one third of women’s informal employment.

Auto, taxi, and rickshaw drivers have to work long hours, and their unhealthy working conditions have increased their health and safety risks.
India thus needs to reform its policy regarding its key workers to provide complete social security coverage. It is necessary to expand even the scope of coverage to key workers in all sectors. Acknowledging the key sector and key workers would be the first step towards that goal.