Article - Covid 19 and Casual labourers
COVID 19 AND CASUAL LABOURERS
Introduction
Corona virus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The first known infections from SARS-CoV-2 were discovered in Wuhan, China. The original source of viral transmission to humans remains unclear, as does whether the virus became pathogenic before or after the spillover event. COVID-19 is caused by infection with the severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-C0V-2) virus strain. Most people infected with the virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment. However, some will become seriously ill and require medical attention. Older people and those with underlying medical conditions like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, or cancer are more likely to develop serious illness. Anyone can get sick with COVID-19 and become seriously ill or die at any age. The virus can spread from an infected person’s mouth or nose in small liquid particles when they cough, sneeze, speak, sing or breathe. These particles range from larger respiratory droplets to smaller aerosols. It is important to practice respiratory etiquette, for example by coughing into a flexed elbow, and to stay home and self-isolate until you recover if you feel unwell.
Covid 19 Pandemic in Kerala
The first case of the COVID-19 pandemic in Kerala which was also the first reported case in all of India was confirmed in Thrissur on 30 January 2020. As of 11 December 2021, there have been 51,90,768 confirmed cases, test positivity rate is at 8.73% (13.02% cumulative), with 51,08,681 (98.27%) recoveries and 42,824(0.8%) deaths in the state. Following high number of cases being reported in March, Kerala had, by April 30, reduced the rate of increase of new cases to less than 0.25% per day. However, in mid-May, there was an increase or "second wave" of new cases, following the return of Keralites from other countries and other Indian states. In July, a large local group of cases was identified at the Kumarichantha fish market in Thrivanthapuram. There was a third surge in cases post-Onam, with a high number of new cases reported in late-October in Malappuram, Kohikode, Ernakulam and Thrissur districts.
Active cases peaked at 97,525, and started to decline from November, before bouncing back to over 4,00,000 in May 2021 following the state elections. On 12 May 2021 Kerala reported the largest single day spike with 43,529 new cases. During 27–28 July Kerala reported 22,129 and 22,056 new cases respectively, accounting for more than 50% of daily new cases in India in those days. The state, however, has the low case fatality rate in India - 0.7% - compared to the national average of 1.2%.Active cases have since been on a decline.
Kerala now has the 2nd highest number of confirmed cases in India after Maharashtra. As of July 2021, more than 90% of known cases were due to community spread. The worst hit districts are Ernakulam (12.3%),Malappuram ( 11%) and Kozhikode(10.7%) districts (Percentage of confirmed cases out of total confirmed cases in Kerala). Cases per million population is highest in Ernakulam (1,96,900+), Kozhikode (1,81,500+), Thrissur (1,76,500+) and Kottayam (1,75,000+) district.
Employment loss
The COVID-19 has resulted in huge loss of employment in all sectors of the economy. According to CMIE total jobs lost was 12 crore in April 2020 In June, the number of jobs was just 30 million less than the FY2021 (average) The CMIE estimates that the unemployment rate hadincreased 24% in May 17, 2020. The rural unemploymentrate was 23% and urban 27%.
Impact of lockdown on Employment
As per NSO survey of the total workers in Kerala, primary sector account for 20.11%, secondary 31.07% and tertiary 48.48% (Table 6). We attempt a rough estimate of loss of employment during the lockdown period. Lockdown has inflicted not much damage to agriculture and allied activities. According to our estimate the loss of employment in manufacturing sector was more than 50%. Construction sector suffered severe loss of employment due to lockdown (More than 50%). In tertiary sector, the following sub-sectors suffered more than 50% loss of employment. They are trade, repair of motor vehicles, accommodation and food services, financial and insurance, education, arts, entertainments and recreation and other services. This is an unprecedented loss of employment during the period of 69 days.
Impact of lockdown on Informal sector employment
Of the total employment in Kerala, the share of self-employed is 37.8%, casual labour 29.3% and regular wage/salary 32.9%. The entire self-employed, casual labour and a major share of regular, wage/salary employed come under informal sector (Nearly 84%). The lockdown has resulted in huge loss of employment of theself-employed and casual labourers. Informal sector workers worked in all sectors viz. primary, secondary and tertiary. Almost all migrant workers from other states are casual workers. The subsectors which suffered severe loss of employment are mining and quarrying, construction, transportation and storage, accomadation and food services, real estate, arts, entertainment and recreation. The lockdown has pushed more than two third of selfemployedand casual workers to acute unemployment, financial crisis, indebtedness and economic distress
History of Pandemics and Economic Impact
Pandemics are not new and have occurred at different stages in human history. Table 1 below provides a historical timeline of major pandemics across the World. While there have been many outbreaks and human catastrophes, there has been a notable rise in the frequency of pandemics from the year 2000 and thereafter. This is particular due to increased emergence of viral disease amongst animals .Given the rise in the frequency of pandemics, many researchers including Garrett (2007), Keogh-Brown et al. (2008) and most recently Madhav et al. (2017) and Fan et al. (2018) argue that a large scale global pandemic was inevitable. Ferguson et al. (2020) from the Imperial College London COVID-19 Response Team claim that COVID-19 is the most serious episode since the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic. Despite the comparisons, Barro (2020) concludes that the non pharmaceutical interventions implemented during 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic were not successful in reducing overall deaths. This was because the interventions were not maintained for a sufficiently long period of enough time. He estimates that the mean duration of school closings and prohibitions of public gatherings was only 36 days, whereas the mean duration of quarantine/isolation was 18 days (0.05 years). These numbers were quite small compared to the number of days that the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic was active.
Pandemics are expected to have a severe negative impact on economic activities, at least in the short run. According to Jonas(2013), the impact ranges from: i) avoidance reaction due to social distancing measures (e.g., individuals might forgo consumption and purchases of certain goods and services), ii) small direct costs (e.g., hospitalization and medical costs), iii) larger indirect costs (loss of labor, production), and iv) offsetting and cascading effects (disruption of services, travel and others). A number of studies tried to anticipate the economic loss from a pandemic.6 For example, Jonung and Roeger (2006) forecasted that a hypothetical global pandemic would lead to 1.6 percent drop in GDP for the European Union. (EU) due to both demand and supply side factors. Other studies analyze the impact with a historical comparison. For example, ‘how would the casualty numbers during the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic transpire today?’ Barro et al. (2020) estimate that, holding everything else constant, the 2.1 percent death rate during the Spanish Influenza pandemic in 1918-1920 would translate to roughly 150 million deaths worldwide (compared to the World’s population of 7.5 billion in 2020) during COVID-19 pandemic. The authors also find that, on average, the 2.1 percent death rate corresponds to 6 percent decline in GDP and 8 percent fall in private consumption
Evolution of Covid 19
According to Zhu et al. (2020), the first pneumonia case was discovered on December 8, 2019 in a wet market in Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei Province of China. Afterwards, several clusters of patients with such pneumonia were reported throughout late December 2019.
Migrant workers and labourers
The Government has launched the One Nation One Ration Card scheme, allowing beneficiaries to claim their rations anywhere in the country. One Nation, One Ration card plan is under implementation by 32 states, and it is reaching about 69 crores beneficiaries- that’s total of 86% beneficiaries covered. The Government will integrate the remaining four states and utilities in the next few months. Government proposes to conclude a process that began 20 years ago with the implantation of the four labor codes. For the first time globally, social security benefits will be extended to gig and platform workers. Minimum wages will apply to all worker’s categories; all of these are covered by the Employees State Insurance corporation. Women will be allowed to work in all categories and also in the night-shifts with adequate protection.
Simultaneously, employers compliance burden will be reduced with a single registration and licensing and online returns. The affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHCs) scheme that has been launched will prevent the proliferation of slums, apart from addressing the issues of health, hygiene, and productivity of migrants and their families. They will lead to responsible entrepreneurship and fulfillment of ethical duty towards the ‘less privileged’, which makes them a critical step in inclusive growth.
CASUAL LABOURERS
In this section, we examine about Casual Labourerswith special reference to Ernakulam district. Casual Labourers are the ones who do not have permanent work. Their work is irregular and consists of a series of jobs. They are paid on a day-to-day basis, depending on the work they have done on that particular day. They do not have any security, neither in terms of income nor permanence of their job. Casual labourers are not hired by employers on a regular basis. They are generally unskilled workers.
For example: workers working at a construction site.
Casual workers refer to those workers, who do not earn regular wages and do not have regular employment throughout the year. They work for few months or days and earn wages for the work done. Casual workers are not hired by employers on regular basis.
Casual Labourers in Ernakulam district
There are roughly two lak migrant workers from other states in Ernakulam district according to a study conducted recently. The two year -long study commissioned by the Kerala Labour Movement, found that a huge majority of the migrant workers were not registered with the Labourdepartment and hence were not eligible for the state government’s worker benefits. While their daily wages were far better than in many other states, the migrant workers lived in pretty bad conditions.
The study on Unorganisedlabourers in Ernakulam district was carried out by Martin Patric, a former Economics professor, and his team of researchers. It aimed to study the extent and nature of unorganized labourers in both the formal an informal sectors of the district’s economy.
Migration to Ernakulam district started in the 1980s and in those days the workers were mostly from Tamil Nadu and neighbouring States. But the second wave of migration that began in the late 1990s, thousands of workers started arriving from Odisha, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Assam and even from Manipur. Initially they were employed in major projects of the Railways and the port. But lately they are seen across the labour market. Thousands were employed as farm hands, masons, carpenters, and domestic and construction workers. Aside from Kochi, migrant workers’ major centres were Perumbavoor, Muvattpuzha, Kalady and Kodanad.
Skill specialization
Interstingly, there is a skill specialization among migrant workers depending on the regions they come from.
For example: road workers were mainly from Panchmahals, quarry workers from Jalan. In some sectors, such as construction and brick kilns, migration of entire families has been a norm.
The study found that employers in Ernakulam preferred migrant workers because of their willingness to work long hours and take up taxing physical work. As a result, they faced hostility of local workers. Death and accidents are frequent among migrant workers as they are often engaged in hazardous occupations without necessary safety precautions. The working and living conditions of the migrant labourers are often pathetic. Mostly, dozens of people are packed in small labour camps and up to six or eight people in a small room.
Though there are two lak inter-state migrant workers in Ernakulam district, only around 5000 were registered with the Migrant Labour Welfare Board, the study has found.
Migrant labourers in Kerala, India's southernmost state,are a significant economic force in the state; there were around 2.5 million internal migrants in Kerala according to a 2013 study by the Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation. Every year, the migrant worker population in Kerala increases by 2.35 lak (235,000) people. The study, based on long-distance trains terminating in Kerala, does not cover migrants from the neighbouring states who use other modes of transport. Assuming that the estimation is rigorous and extrapolating it, taking into account the net annual addition, possible growth in migration rate, as well as accounting for the migration from the neighbouringstates, Kerala is likely to have 5 to 5.5 million inter-state migrant workers in 2020. Despite their importance and despite many of them praising the state for its welfare schemes and environment, they are often ignored in comparison and suffer from comparatively poor living conditions.
Around three-fourths of the migrant workers from Kerala, who had to come back due to the Covid crisis, are yet to find an occupation here, says a study commissioned by the Centre for Development Studies (CDS) here.
If you employ them for two weeks or less you can pay them without deducting PAYE tax or NI. Since the introduction of RTI, the golden rule is that, apart from harvest workers/beaters, you should treat PAYE when employing casual workers and other short-term employees in the same way as for permanent staff. In cases where the work done by a casual worker is different from the work.done by a regular employee, the casual worker may be paid only the minimum wages. notified by the Ministry of Labour and Employment or the State Government/Union Territory Administration, whichever is higher, as per the Minimum Wages Act, 1948.
Supreme Court has held that Section 2(22) of the ESI Act covers the “casual employees” employed for a few days on a work of perennial nature and wages as defined in section 2(22) and wage period as defined in section 2(23) does not exclude the wages payable to casual workers
The Problems faced by casual workers are :;
They are paid a high salary. They are not compensated at any point in their employment. They do not get a hike in their salaries. They do not have any benefits like medical insurance or provident funds.
If you have been working as a casual employee for 12 months or more, you are considered to be a 'long-term casual employee'. Under the Fair Work Act, long-term casual employees who are likely to continue working in the same job can: Request flexible working arrangements. Take unpaid parental leave for up to 12 months.
Tamil Nadu and Karnataka in the south, Uttar Pradesh in the north, Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar and West Bengal in the east and Assam in the northeast India were the major states of origin of migrant workers.
CONCLUSION
We all know that the Covid-19 pandemic has affected everyone a lot. When looking into the aspects of my study, my study focused on the impact of the pandemic on casual workers. Casual workers are those who work on daily wages. When comparing the pre and post income and debt analysis, the income of casual workers before the pandemic were fair and the workers were satisfied. But the situation worsened at the time of pandemic. At the time of pandemic, the workers were not only earning lower incomes, but some workers even earned no income at all and they faced difficulty and they took help from government, public support. They were only able to satisfy the basic needs of the family. And now at the present situation the casual workers are satisfied. Compared to their income at the time of pandemic, they are satisfied. When looking into pre and post debt, 70 percent more than the majority still have debts. The debts did not considerably increase due to pandemic. The debts they are having at the present they already had before.
BIBILOGRAPHY
4. www.who.int.
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