Tamil Nadu   

Expenses climb up, not income

Popular as an industrial district with its strength in textiles and engineering, Coimbatore is also a place of huge employment opportunities.

Be it the textile mills, garment units, foundries or the engineering establishments, job opportunities are aplenty for skilled and unskilled workforce, thus attracting people from other districts and States too.

However, do the workforce and employees earn enough to meet the rising expenses?

“Our expenses are similar to our age. It only goes up and never comes down. So, we have to look at ways to increase our income,” says Maragatham Pillai Manoharan, who works in a textile mill here. Workers are apprehensive about future as spending goes up and wages do not increase to the same levels, he says.

In Coimbatore, engineering units revise the wages once in three years.

However, it is almost 10 years since the wages were revised for textile mill workers. Meanwhile, prices of essentials, transportation and rentals are on the rise. How will the workers meet these expenses, asks M. Arumugam, General Secretary, Coimbatore District Mill Workers’ Union (AITUC).

Historically, factors such as house rent and even snacks that will be given at tea-time were considered, discussed and finalised when wages were revised for the workers.

“Today, with labour shortage, wages and workplace comforts are decided by the market,” says an official of the Southern India Mills’ Association.

Just 30 to 40 per cent of the workers in the mills are on permanent rolls.

So, every time a new set of workers joins a unit, the wages are those prevalent in the market at that point of time.

Apart from the wages and the statutory benefits, most of the textile units provide transportation facilities, snacks at subsidised rates or free of cost, medical check-up, additional skill training, etc.

Though these vary with each unit, most of the mills provide these additional benefits too, he says.

In the case of skilled staff, a mill manager used to earn Rs. 2 lakh to Rs. 2.5 lakh annually.

In the last three years, the wages have gone up to the levels of Rs. 7 lakh to Rs. 10 lakh a year, he contends.

On the engineering front, the wage structure varies. Some units pay consolidated wages, some give the basic and incentive wages too.

During the last one year cost of living has gone up tremendously, points out Jayakumar Ramdass, vice-president of the Southern India Engineering Manufacturers’ Association.

Skilled staff are in demand and so they have more opportunities for higher salaries. It is the workers who feel the pinch with the prices of essentials shooting up, he says.

“When I travel to cities such as Bangalore or Hyderabad, I hear people say that Coimbatore is an expensive place to live in.”

Rentals have spiralled and the city lacks affordable living. “It is a small city with relatively less infrastructure. But, with high consumption and demand for the existing infrastructure, the costs go up,” he says.

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