Sometime ago, my friend got married to Goan "old-money". Her in-laws' house was built in the Portuguese style of the colonial era, with a courtyard in the middle, an attached chapel and a salle big enough to accommodate over 100 people. At my own count the rooms numbered to 15. Despite all this apparent wealth, the maid was made to sleep in the storeroom, where grain was stored and rats ran amuck.
What is it about our psyche that becomes desensitized to human beings that assist us and make our lives better. Where do we get the idea that it is ok to treat them like less than human. Perhaps it stems from the fact that labour is abundant in our one billion plus country. Labour at the lower strata is exploited because it is plentiful and available at a cheap rate. Now, one would assume because labour is available at a cheap rate, at the more skilled level at least this would become beneficial to the plight of labour in India. Indeed it has become detrimental. If we expect multinationals and huge Indian companies to employ adequate number of people to preform required services, we are mistaken. Infact, Indian companies revel in the fact that they can gnaw at the inherent insecurity that resides in every working Indian soul, and make a single employee do the work of atleast 3 people. This exploitative trend then translates into a "work culture". Working long hours, burning the midnight oil and the candle at both ends becomes the expected norm. Anyone who dares to leave at end of office hours is condescendingly labeled a "nine-to-five" man and further advances in ones career are all but closed to such an individual. Indian companies have never felt the need to have a social conscience nor the demographic pressure to be employee friendly. Although in recent years some advances have been made in the sphere of human resource management, the greater emphasis is still on "working like a dog" and making one's personal life secondary to the needs of the company. When will we change our attidude towards labour? selma ____________________________________________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta. http://new.mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
