In the Devaria district of Uttar Pradesh, a nexus between corrupt officials of the labour department and the private agents has been leading to massive corruption, loot of the public exchequer and blatant violation of workers’ rights. The construction workers’ union in Devaria has been protesting against this ongoing corruption and the complicity of one of the officials in the labour department who has amassed crores of rupees. Despite repeated protests, the investigation against this official has never been pursued seriously. When the construction workers’ union tried to get registration of the workers done, and when they demanded implementation of the workers’ legally mandated rights, private agents who work with the tacit support of the labour department tried to stop this process of collective bargaining by the workers themselves. The workers’ union therefore decided to organise a panchayat in front of the local district magistrate’s (DM) office to press for their demands such as issual of job cards, registration of all workers and payment of legally mandated wages. Around 2000 workers participated in this panchayat and submitted a memorandum of their demands to the DM. Under pressure from the workers, the local administration accepted the regiatration requests for around 2500 workers. This protest was led by AICCTU leaders comrades Premlata Pandey, Ramkishore, Geeta Pandey and others.
