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WORLD OF WORK
No. 45, December 2002
No. 45, December 2002
In India, beedi rollers seek
new ways of earning a living
Rolling beedis, an indigenous, hand-made cigarette, has provided employment for millions of Indians - most of them women - over the centuries. Now, the anti-tobacco movement is cutting demand - and in the process threatening their economic health. Kiran Mehra-Kerpelman visited two beedi-rolling villages in Mangalore, South India, where the ILO is offering these impoverished women new and better ways of earning a living.
MANGALORE, India - As the group of indigenous women rapidly and expertly roll the brown, tube-like indigenous cigarettes called "beedis", their spokeswoman worries about the worldwide anti-tobacco movement and how it's threatening their jobs.
"I've been rolling beedis for years, but now I have little work", says Jalaja during the meeting of a beedi workers' self-help group held recently in this south Indian village. "The government has banned tobacco smoking in public places and many people in other countries aren't buying beedis anymore. I may soon have to find another way of earning a living."
The women have gathered here to discuss the challenges posed by an increasingly anti-tobacco climate, and the prospects aren't good. While declines in smoking are seen as a way to improve public health, the women rolling the little brown tendu leaves into slim cigarettes and tying them with filaments of bright red cotton thread, worry that an industry that once sustained them may soon - literally - go up in smoke.
Indeed, the fate of the beedi industry is no small thing. Once a livelihood for some 4.5 million rollers - 90 per cent of them women - the little cigarette's decline is posing big problems for them. Most are illiterate, in poor health and socially marginalized. They have no assets of any kind. And they worry that the loss of even the dollar-a-day income they now earn may mean economic hardship, or worse, like their underage children taking jobs to make ends meet.
"These women were working five to six days a week, but over the last two to three years their work has been reduced by half," says Arun Kumar, the National Coordinator of a new ILO project established here to help beedi rollers find other jobs.
In fact, unions of beedi workers are eager to learn other ways of earning a living. And their employers also feel the future of the beedi industry is grim. In response, the ILO Area Office for India, together with the Organization's Gender Promotion Programme and the Government of the Netherlands, has launched a new programme to promote decent work for women workers in the beedi industry.
"Given the global and national trends in the tobacco industry and the working conditions of the very large numbers of women and their families dependent on the industry, the aim of the programme is twofold," says Lin Lim Lean, ILO expert on gender and employment issues. "For the home-based women beedi rollers, the objective is to improve conditions of work and extend basic labour standards, and health and social protection to these women and their families. For those who are losing work and incomes in the beedi industry, the aim is to help them find alternative means of livelihood, including ensuring that poverty is not pushing their children into hazardous labour."
Beedi hazards, ILO solutions
Still, loss of income isn't the only problem faced by beedi rollers. Although most of the women don't smoke, working conditions threaten both their physical and economic well-being.
Few of the illiterate women are aware of their legal rights as workers, for example, and unscrupulous contractors sometimes deny them access to identity cards needed to obtain benefits offered by a Beedi Workers Welfare Fund. As home-based workers, they are often short-changed by the arbitrary rejection of finished beedis on the grounds of poor quality - sometimes due to contractors providing them with low-grade raw materials to begin with. Their health is also threatened: inhaling tobacco dust can cause as many problems as smoking the stuff. And differences in minimum wage across different states have resulted in a shift of the industry to low-wage areas.
So, it's an uphill battle for the mostly women workers who are either jobless or see a significant reduction in earnings. With no alternative employment or income opportunities and no access to credit for self-employment ventures, many communities fear their livelihood is at stake.
The ILO programme works in cooperation with trade unions, employers' organizations, the Labour Ministry, local authorities and community organizations, as well as with the women directly. One of the first activities of the programme was to organize self-help groups, allowing the women to meet to discuss problems and collectively seek solutions.
"We are organizing workshops in which they can assess their opportunities and resources at a local level, and explore possibilities of what they can do," says Mr. Kumar, the project coordinator. "Working from home isolates women from the rest of the working world. Through group meetings and activities, they are able to receive basic education, become aware of their legal rights and find out how to effectively claim these rights. They are also taught alternative skills, including entrepreneurship development, health, and family and child welfare."
To give the women ideas for self-employment, the ILO project supports so-called "exposure visits" to income-generating activities in other areas. Beedi group spokeswoman Jalaja overcame her shyness to become one of those who took part in a recent visit.
"Before, I was afraid of talking to people from outside, but now I feel more confident," she says. "Moreover, I had no savings earlier, but with the self-help group and our micro-credit arrangement, I have started to save. I have been able to take a loan from the group to repair my house and buy medicines for my sick son."
Thanks to an exposure visit, Jalaja is now thinking of starting her own laundry business in an area where there is no facility for washing clothes. Aside from that, she may also find a patch of land using micro-credit facilitated by the ILO project and grow vegetables to sell in a nearby market.
The programme works with established local organizations to provide training and other support services to the women. To enhance the capacity of these organizations, the ILO is encouraging networking, helping them strengthen their institutional structures, and improve their training and awareness-raising materials.
"Providing technical assistance to local grassroots organizations means that the ILO builds capacity and leaves behind sustainable activities, even after the programme comes to an end," says the representative of Adarsha (Agency for Development Awakening and Rural Self-Help Associations), one of the local NGO partners involved in the programme.
With the cooperation of a local NGO, Deeds (Development Education Service), semi-literate women in Ulal Village have been trained in alternative trades, such as paper recycling and making paper products, farming of herbal and medicinal plants, bee-keeping, food processing, vegetable selling and the preparation of food snacks.
"There is more money in the new work than in beedi making," says Zojeth, one of two sisters who used to roll beedis but benefited from an ILO technical assistance project that taught them a new skill. "Now I can do both things."
Sustainable and socially empowering interventions need to focus not only on livelihoods but also on improving literacy and health levels, rights awareness, family and child welfare, group dynamics and capacity building. A related aim of the ILO is to assist the social partners to better prepare the labour force to face the growing crisis in the beedi sector.
"Before this programme started, I had no exposure to another life, even though I am educated," Zojeth adds. "Now I know how to live. I don't stay home and cook as before. Life now is good. I want to take life in my own hands, and the ILO has shown me the way and given me the means."