‘This job is our only livelihood’

For the past seven years, through photographs, I have been documenting the lives and struggles of sanitation workers. In these years, I have never once seen sanitation workers carry out their work wearing proper masks or protective equipment. Whatever little gear they use, they prepare and manage on their own.

Even as scientific progress in India has scaled great heights, we continue to send human beings into underground sewers, where they risk – and often lose – their lives. This makes it clear that, while science has advanced, caste prejudice remains frozen deep in our society.

Society remembers sanitation workers as “frontline workers” only during extraordinary moments – the covid pandemic or natural disasters. At all other times, they are remembered only as the ones who clear garbage.

From August 1 to 13, 2025, sanitation workers staged a continuous sit-in protest outside Chennai’s Ripon Building – headquarters of the city’s municipal body, the Greater Chennai Corporation -- against the privatisation of sanitation work. On the thirteenth day, the Tamil Nadu government forcibly evicted them with the help of the police.

The workers from Zones 5 (Royapuram) and 6 (Thiru Vi Ka Nagar) have been protesting since August 1, after the Greater Chennai Corporation decided to hand over solid waste management in these areas to private contractors.

For these workers, most of them Dalit women who have spent years cleaning the city, privatisation is not just a question of wages but of dignity and survival. Losing direct employment with the Corporation means losing even the possibility of permanent status under existing labour laws. Their resistance is both a fight for livelihoods and a refusal to let their invisible labour be further devalued in the name of efficiency.

Elected representatives never step into a venue without sanitation workers first cleaning it thoroughly, sprinkling bleaching powder, and making it presentable. And yet, the very people who protect this society from disease are, because of caste, denied dignity and recognition as fellow human beings. They have been cheated generation after generation.

During those 13 days of protest, I spent five days with them, documenting their lives and struggles. It became clear to me that sanitation workers have seen not even a drop of progress in their lives. For generations, they have given away their youth and most of their life to sanitation work, and in return, they have lost everything.

Striking workers spoke to me on condition of anonymity. One worker told me, “Brother, they changed our jobs without any notice. If there had to be changes, they should have informed us all, gathered us, and explained. Instead, they just told us – you no longer work here, go join the private company. After 16 years of breaking my back in this Corporation, suddenly they tell me this? I have worked without water, without leave, with delayed wages. My children study only because we borrow money. If this job is taken away, how will we repay our debts? We are not even asking for permanent jobs – only for the same wage we were already earning.”

Among the more than 2,000 workers who had gathered in protest, many had been working continuously for 16 or 20 years. They were employed under the Greater Chennai Corporation through the NULM (National Urban Livelihood Mission) and were paid Rs. 23,000 per month.

Then suddenly, without any prior notice, their work was being privatised, and their monthly wage was cut from Rs. 23,000 to Rs. 16,000. Against this, they protested for 13 straight days outside Ripon Building. For over 20 years, workers had been labouring with the belief that their jobs would one day be made permanent. Instead, their work was handed to private contractors and their wages reduced below what they had been earning. Society refuses to recognise what this means for their mental state.

Their protest was not for permanent jobs. It was simply to retain the same wages under the Corporation instead of being shifted to lower-paid contract work. Leaving their children hungry at home, they sat day and night under the scorching sun and pouring rain in front of Ripon Building for 13 days. Three-fourths of the protesters were women, many of them widows.

A woman worker said, “For many women, their husbands are dead, or drunkards. In such situations, this broom is our husband, this garbage work is our family.” Another added, “Our children ask us: ‘Amma, what will we do for next month’s rent?’ Our grandchildren say, ‘You don’t buy us anything anymore.’ What do we answer them?”

In the previous regime, the majority of sanitation workers had been converted into contract workers. This government has continued the same practice. The ruling party’s election promise to make sanitation workers permanent has remained only in its manifesto.

The Chennai Corporation issued a press release alleging that the protest by sanitation workers had caused major inconvenience to the public and traffic congestion near Ripon Building, and that sanitation lapses would affect more than two million residents.

But in reality, the workers conducted their protest peacefully, without causing any disruption.

One worker explained, “Every flood, every cyclone, they promise us permanency. But nothing happens. In cyclone times, we leave home at 5 a.m. to walk through flooded streets to work. Dogs and cats that die in the storm – we pick them up with bare hands. We finish work at night, exhausted, without gloves, without raincoats. If an officer visits, only then do they give us gloves or coats. Otherwise, we buy our own. Once a year, they give us one dustbin. Not even a spade.”

The same press release also claimed that privatisation would bring many benefits to workers including free uniforms, equipment for garbage removal during the rainy season, provident fund, medical insurance, bonuses, festival allowances, marriage assistance (up to Rs. 20,000), educational aid (up to Rs.12,000), accident and death compensation, and annual medical check-ups. But whether these promises exist in practice is highly questionable.

Another worker said, “Five years ago, there were only two trucks of garbage a day. Now it’s four. For years before motorised vehicles, we pulled handcarts. Nobody segregates waste; we separate it with our bare hands – diapers, sanitary pads, broken glass. If we take leave, even a day’s wage is cut. If we get hurt, we pay for our own treatment. Sometimes residents will not even give us water to drink.”

When the protest ended, sanitation workers employed by Ramky – a private company with multiple fraud cases against it – were brought in garbage trucks, without protective gear, to clean up the protest site. Protesters questioned why work was entrusted to a company facing such allegations.

It is also entirely false to label temporary workers appointed through self-help groups as “contract workers.” The Corporation has recently outsourced work in Zones 5 and 6 to Ramky contractors through tender. But without a written tender process, calling self-help group workers “contractors” is nothing but fraud. This was pointed out in the High Court, in the two judge bench headed by Justice Suresh Kumar following the judgements of retired Justice Hari Parandhaman.

As one worker put it: “This is treated as a low, degrading occupation. They stop our children from progressing. If we earn Rs. 23,000 and climb a little, they push us back to Rs. 15,000 so our children can never escape. They want us tied to garbage generation after generation.”

The protest was led by the Workers’ Rights Movement, LTUC, AICCTU, and UUI unions. For all 13 days, no government official came to directly meet the workers. Talks were held only with union leaders, but since the government was firm on privatisation, no agreement was reached. On the 13th day, the government used police power to forcibly remove the protesters and arrested them all. They were released the next day after much struggle.

Privatisation has silenced the voices of sanitation workers. If they question authority, they are immediately dismissed. Once, while I was documenting sanitation work in Coimbatore, a worker shared his struggles with me. By that evening, the contractor had fired him. That is what privatisation means: crushing their voices.

One worker lamented, “We have been working 8, 10, even 15 years. No gloves, no masks, nothing is given. We buy everything ourselves. Even then, no government has given us an opportunity. This job is our only livelihood. We did it during corona, during cyclones, and now in return, they hand us over to contractors.” Another added, “If Kalaignar Ayya [DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi] were alive, he would have ensured permanency for us. We sit on the road, drenched in rain, scorched in sun, and still work.”

Health concerns weigh heavily too. “Some of us now suffer from uterine swelling, kidney disease, and many other health problems. Even women above 55 and 60, who have worked 15 years, are suddenly told they have no job. What benefits do they see now for all these years of toil?”

Others spoke of despair: “From the Rs.23,000 salary, we hardly received six months of full wages before they struck us down. Now we borrow to survive. Interest piles up. We don’t know how to go on. Our lives have become a question mark.”

“If even engineers and accountants in the Corporation were put on contract, would that be acceptable? Why then are only we privatised? What is the government for, if not to protect Tamil Nadu’s people? If Tamil Nadu itself is brought to such humiliation, then what is left?”

Society’s idea of “social justice” seems to be sitting beside them for a cup of tea, sharing a meal, and pretending for a moment that they are like us. It is totally absurd. True social justice is standing with them, securing their rights, bringing their demands into reality, and ensuring that those who clean our cities are treated with dignity. Anything less is hypocrisy.

This story was originally reported in Tamil.