The Safai Kamgar Union (SKU) alleged that the sanitation workers of the Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women (IGDTUW) are being harassed in the name of verification for reemployment. The SKU also submitted a memorandum on September 16 to the university. The sanitation workers were allegedly fired on a day's notice on September 14.
The Registrar of the university had promised that these workers will be reemployed. The workers were allegedly asked to submit "all the documents required by the new contract company to the new contractor's office within the next 15 days". Here's where the problem lies. The workers have been asked to submit their Class 8 Passing Certificate, Biodata of mother, father, husband, wife, son or daughter, Medical Certificate, Character Certificate, Police Verification, Experience Certificate, PAN card, Cancelled Cheque among others. "We would like to emphasise that most of the sanitation workers in the university hail from the Dalit community and poor backgrounds who have been historically marginalised and have been unable to complete school education or are illiterate. Specifically, the female sanitation workers are victims of greater deprivation and backwardness. In this case, the unnecessary demand for the submission of the Class 8 Pass certificate is nothing but a ploy to remove them from their jobs," said the SKU.
The SKU and the workers said that the majority of the workers do not possess these documents and collecting or arranging all these documents from different government institutions within such a limited time is not possible. "It must be noted that police verification requires a letterhead from the company, however, the workers have not been given any letterhead so far. Also, police verification within Delhi takes over 25-30 days and some workers have also migrated to Delhi for work from UP and other states. In such a situation, it is impossible to submit police verification within a 15 day window," aid Harish Gautam, a member of SKU. "Unnecessary documents such as biodata of mother, brother, spouse, son, and daughters are being demanded to harass the workers. The workers who have been doing this job for over 15-16 years now, especially the women workers, are being asked to submit a pass certificate. This demand is neither necessary nor logical in any respect," he added.
