fms December 2015

“Did you calculate minimum wage?”
“My neighbour did: 44,000 rupees.”
“Mine came to 36,000. Where I missed eight!”
“And that’s when plants aren’t part of our calculations.”

Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 330
December 2015

Page 1: Conversations amongst a few, drawing in many
Page 2: Reports On The Irrelevance of Labour Laws
Page 3: Labour Department Delhi + Security Workers
Page 4: First Job + In Solidarity with Library Genesis and Science Hub

FMS_Dec2015 by baatein1

November 2015 fms

“That day: There was no meeting. There were no hushed conversations. No one called others for discussions. Everyone was calm and quiet. The thought of stopping work and cleaning ones hands 45 minutes before lunch hour came to each one on the shop floor.”

“Was it magic?”

“This happens often. Once or twice a month.”

Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 329
November 2015

Page 1: Polymorphic Resonances
Page 2: Reports On The Irrelevance of Labour Laws
Page 3: What Manesar Will Draw from Women Workers of Munnar + Bridgestone Workers at Crossroads
Page 4: A Template To Calculate Your Own Minimum Wages

---

From this month we will meet every Sunday at the Majdoor Library, which has been freshly repainted and looking very nice. You are welcome to bring a plant.
Address: Majdoor Library, Autopin Jhuggi, Faridabad - 121001.
Phone: 0129-6567014
Metro to Neelam Chowk (Violet Line), then a shared auto to Bata Chowk, and a short walk through thermal power plant.

FMS_Nov2015_Is329

A BALLAD AGAINST WORK

A Ballad Against Work by baatein1

CONFIDENT CAPACITIES, VIBRANT EXPRESSIONS

Front Page, Faridabad Majdoor Samachar
June 2015, New Series #324

“Thoughts of a Few Temporary Workers”, front page of the April 2015 issue of FMS, has generated many conversations. A group of factory workers called from Nagpur praising the workers’ words and ideas. We hear a Bangla translation has been published. An art student associated with ‘Gulf Labour’ feels it’s expedient that there be, and has promised, an English translation. Reading it, people who work in, or have worked in, factories have felt an electric excitement. To one friend these workers exemplify the highest form of expression of being a worker in the world today. Another said they have posed the most expansive and universal condition of being a worker in the present. And, not unexpectedly, political groups have reached out to the Majdoor Library to condemn the workers’ words and actions.

This excitement, so much support, strong opposition, together. Why? It’s a response to the vibrant and expressive confidence of these workers. This confidence comes from their expansive capacities. These capacities are both qualities and wagers. Here’s a beginning list:

(A)
- Capacity to describe
- Capacity to evaluate, interpret, analyse
- Capacity to use memory tools

(B)
- Capacity to gather resources
- Capacity to build a shared resource base
- Capacity to act, take decisions

(C)
- Capacity to de-operationalise and disrupt settled assumptions of distinctions between speaker and listener
- Capacity to puncture pompousness
- Capacity, and courage, to interrupt and talk back

(D)
- Capacity for taking flexible, egoless steps
- Capacity to take these steps with a measure of ones strength
- Capacity to make adjustments when there are errors, and stay open to new experiments
- Capacity to take steps as person, team, group, gathering, network

(E)
- Capacity for simplicity and intensity, straightforwardness and complexity
- Capacity of generosity for sources of ideas and resources
- Capacity to soak in a diversity of suggestions and a range of advice
- Capacity for listening to everyone yet acting according to own reading of situations

(F)
- Capacity to sharply recognize stakes
- Capacity for patient analysis
- Capacity to read signs, make the hidden apparent, read the inscrutable, hoodwink the deceit

(G)
- Capacity to act, and be active through and across workspaces, everywhere
- Capacity to be expressive in, and have presence in, an entire region

(H)
- Capacity for communal luxury, collective joy
- “What is it that workers want?”
Capacity to increase the heat and keep this riddle smoldering.

fms October 2015

Fms October 2015

fms September 2015

Fms September 2015

Comrade Chintamani

Comrade Chintamani Aug2015

Of Work Riots, Political Prisoners, and Workers Refusing to Leave the Factory – Translated Through the Pages of Faridabad Workers News (2005–2015)

FMS_Eflux_Aug2015

fms august 2015

August Fms 2015 by baatein1

fms july 2015

Fms July 2015 by baatein1

fms june 2015

june 2015

fms May 2015

May 2015 by baatein1

fms April 2015

Fms April 2015 by baatein1

FMS March 2015

Fms March 2015

february 2014

February 2014

fms January 2015

Fms January 2015 by baatein1

fms December 2014

December 2014