Aman Zutshi
Several workers on Friday staged a agitation in Kathua opposing extended working hours shift from nine to 12, seeking standard daily work hours of eight hours a day.
Labourers including woman, men both migrants and non-migrants working in Chenab Textile Mill in Kathua expressed resentment and held a demonstration against the mill management demanding reduction in working works.
“The mill management has perturbed us so much. We used to work in morning shifts till 8pm in night, but now the mill administration has forced us from past 15 days to work for 12 hours in the canal. How can women work near the canals as it is not safe. We also have homes, kids to look after”, said, Mrs Rani Devi, a local woman who is a mill worker.
“I have been working in this mill from past 15 years and who will cook food for our children if we work for 12 hrs a day. The mill authorities have pestered us so much”, she added.
“We are being pushed to work for 12 hours and how can women work in the night and where we will leave our kids, what if someone abduct them. We have to go to our work very early at 6am. We will work only for 8 hours”, a woman migrant worker added.
