Noida Factory Workers Protest Minimum Wage & Violence

The demonstration of factory workers in Noida continues for the 8th day. 8 days ago, from 9th April, about 42 thousand employees were agitating demanding increase in salary. When their demands were not met, the employees took to the streets.

On April 13, the protest demanding increase in salary and better working conditions had turned violent. The mob that erupted in many areas including Noida Sector 60, 62, 84 and Phase-2 vandalized factories and set many vehicles on fire. During this there was a clash with the police.

According to the police, the violence first broke out from Phase-2 of Noida. The companies here are Motherson, Richa Global, Rainbow, Paramount, SND and Anubhav. More than 1000 workers of these companies were protesting for the last 6 days for increasing their salaries. About 500 employees had gathered outside the Motherson Company.

Preparations for demonstration on 16th April also

Despite the recent salary revision in Haryana, workers are unhappy. He says that the increased salary is much less than inflation.

Gurugram Municipal Corporation Employees Union leader Vasant Kumar said that how can anyone live in a city like Gurugram with such a salary? He said, ‘The new labor code, LPG crisis and poor working conditions are not in the interest of the workers. Therefore, we will continue to protest against all this.

The workers here are also protesting against the new labor codes of the central government. According to him, these codes allow 12-hour shifts without overtime compensation. This will give factory owners an opportunity to exploit the workers.

The new rules, according to the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (OSH) Code-2020, provide employers and workers the opportunity to have flexible shift patterns. Under this, workers can be made to work for 12 hours, provided that they should also get three days off in a week. That means we will work only 48 hours a week. If you work overtime, you should get at least double the wages. But unions and workers fear that factory owners will get 12 hours of work done for only 8 hours’ pay.

In such a situation, municipal and state workers have announced to protest by stopping all work for three hours on 16 April.

Protesters in Noida said- ‘Rs 200 increased, what will happen in this?’

Ragini, one of the protesters, says, ‘We have been protesting for almost a month regarding our demands. There has been an increase of Rs 200, what will happen in this? The government should pay Rs 20 thousand salary, that too immediately. Until this happens, we will continue the protest!

Many people complained that they get work done for more than 8 hours. You don’t get paid for overtime. Salary never comes on time. 20 thousand is written in the salary slip but the salary is 11 thousand. There is only one toilet for all the employees in the company. Even if someone falls ill, he does not get leave quickly.

Protesters say that the current situation is even worse. Not only is rent and food expensive, the cylinder itself costs Rs 4-5 thousand. With this much salary, should we eat, raise children or educate children?

Another protester said, ‘By what means has Rs 341 increased? Let us not ask for much. We just want increased salary as per government order.

According to a report, minimum wages were last revised in Uttar Pradesh in the year 2012.

According to the Minimum Wages Act, minimum wages have been fixed according to each sector. In these also, different wages have been fixed according to the region, i.e. according to Tier 1, 2 and 3 cities.

The thing to be noted here is that there are region and category wise variations in the amount increased by the UP government. But there is no variation in the previous salary.

After protest in Haryana, government increased salary by 35%

Factory workers of Haryana had also protested in the first week of April with similar demands as the workers of Noida.

Last week itself, clashes had also taken place in Industrial Model Township (IMT) of Manesar. Even then thousands of contract workers had come out on the streets.

Earlier in February, about 30 thousand employees of Indian Oil Corporation were sitting on strike outside the company in Panipat.

After this, the Haryana government decided to increase the salary by 35 percent. After which the workers will get Rs 580-750 as daily wages.

Whereas, in Noida currently it is between 350 to 400. According to the workers, their monthly salary is Rs 11000, out of which Rs 1000 is taken by the contractor for providing the work. Out of this, he has only Rs 10,000 left which is insufficient to survive in this era of inflation.

If we talk about Haryana, the minimum wages were last revised in October 2015.

What does the Minimum Wage Act say?

Under the Minimum Wage Act, the Central Government sets a floor wage, under which there is a provision for state governments and industries to fix the same or more salary.

State governments cannot fix salaries lower than this. It is now necessary to revise the salary every 3 years. Earlier this limit was for 5 years.

Earlier there was Minimum Wages Act-1948 for this, which has now been included in the Code on Wages-2019. In this, 4 labor laws have been merged, in which

How is minimum wage decided?

Minimum wage is decided by the skill of the person and his location. The government has prepared 4 categories for skills-

1. Unskilled

2. Semi-skilled/unskilled supervisor

3. Skilled or Clerical

4. Highly Skilled

The cost of living varies depending on the location. The expenditure will not be the same for a village in Bihar or Delhi. Therefore, the wage is also decided according to the location. For this, different salaries are fixed for Tier 1, 2 and 3. The government has divided these into A, B, and C zones.

Apart from these factors, minimum wage is decided in two ways.

VDA means the allowance given to workers which keeps increasing or decreasing according to inflation. VDA is linked to CPI-IW (Consumer Price Index- Industrial Worker), which should usually be changed twice a year. First time on 1 April and second time on 1 October. There was not so much emphasis on this in the old rules, but in the new rules it has been said to be implemented strictly.

This Minimum Wages Act applies to all scheduled employments, such as construction, mining, cleaning, loading-unloading, farming and other industrial work.

After the latest update of minimum wage, CPI-IW has increased by 11.28 points, based on which the cost of wages in central sectors like construction, mining and cleaning has increased from April 1, 2026. After this, the states had to increase dearness allowance according to their rates. When the state governments did not increase it, there were protests.

After violent protests, on Tuesday, April 14, the UP government increased the existing salary by Rs 3,000. But even after this the workers are protesting. They are sticking to the demand of Rs 20,000 monthly salary.

Demonstrations also took place in Bihar and Gujarat

Before the protest in Noida on Monday, violent protests also took place in Barauni in Bihar, Surat in Gujarat, Manesar and Panipat in Haryana. The state governments either did not increase the salaries of the workers or the amount increased was insufficient.

On February 2, there was a protest in Barauni demanding increase in salary, fixing working hours and social security provisions like PF, ESIC.

On 27 February, 5000 contractual workers of L&T in Surat protested in Hazira which turned violent.

Story – Sonali Rai

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