Trade unions condemn L&T CEO’s statement on work hours

Trade unions criticize L&T chairman's call for 90-hour work week, sparking debate on workers' rights and gender equality.

The central trade unions (CTUs) condemned the statement by the chairman and managing director of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) Limited S.N. Subrahmanyan that working hours must be extended to 90 hours per week, and asking employees to come to work on Sundays too rather than “staring at their wives” at home. Although L&T later said that the statement by their Chairman reflected a larger ambition for making India a developed nation, it drew flak from various sections of the society, including women’s rights activists.

The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) said Mr. Subrahmanyan’s statement was similar to the “satanic statement” earlier made by the Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy, urging an increase in working hours to 70 hours per week through statutory measures. “It seems that there is a rogue competition among the corporate messiahs to rinse the blood and sweat of Indian workers and they are in active connivance and collaboration with the corporate-communal regime in governance by Modi-led NDA [National Democratic Alliance],” CITU general secretary Tapan Sen said in a statement.

Mr. Sen said Indian workers, even permanent employees in the formal sector, were deployed for much longer hours of work compared with more productive countries, including China, Europe and even the U.S. “The stretching of working hours is very disastrously impacting upon the health and social life of Indian workers,” Mr. Sen said.

Former general secretary of the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and head of the labour studies think tank Dattopant Thengade Foundation Virjesh Upadhyay said the statement was highly condemnable and raised serious concerns on workers’ welfare and work-life balance. “Advocating such a policy contradicts the principles of quality of life and human dignity that are fundamental to a progressive society. Furthermore, it is concerning that an individual drawing a salary 500 times more than a company’s average employee would propose measures that disproportionately burden the workforce. Such disparity in income and privilege should compel greater responsibility toward ensuring equitable and humane working conditions, not the opposite,” Mr. Upadhyay said.

Condemning the statement, All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) general secretary Amarjeet Kaur said India needed all the work hours it could generate. “But then what about the raging unemployment? There is youthful energy going waste! Unemployment is reaching highest [levels] as per latest surveys — Subramanyans and Murthys do not have anything to say on that score. And whatever wealth is created by the present workforce, at 48 hours a week, there are leeches like Adanis, Ambanis and Choksis and Nirav Modis, and a host of corporates syphoning off the wealth created. There is an indecent, increasing gap between the rich and the poor in India. It has reached to the level of what was there 80 years ago,” Ms. Kaur said.

The All India Working Women’s Forum of the AITUC termed Mr. Subramanyan’s statement patriarchal, scandalous, and condemnable. “This is objectification of women. Mr. Subramanyan dehumanises women by reducing them to be mere spectacles. His statement disrespects women’s autonomy and agency. Mr. Subramanyan should know that wives are not to be adorned and be ‘stared at’. Mr. Subramanyan should know that a woman is an independent entity and her identity is not defined by her relationships,” the Forum’s convenor Vahida Nizam said.