Latest issues of fms now available on a new site-
Read
The Crossing
&
Listen, the Revolution Blooms In Silence
Subscribe here for monthly issues directly!
Saturday, November 11, 2017
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
FMS #351 | Turbulent, Fertile Gap | Faridabad-NCR, September 2017
Go on! Make a film.
Seriously? On whom?
On me.
Why?
You don’t believe, eh, that I can think of myself in the role of a heroine in a film?
No, that’s not it. I’m surprised because you always think against the ‘hero’.
How do you enter a script without being a hero? It’s a puzzle. If you’re not a hero, you won’t get lines through which to speak what you think. And if you do become a hero, you’ll be asked to speak lines that are against the basis of life itself.
Then become an anti-hero!
That’s a possibility. Anti-heroes get some lines of their own. But those are then tied to some inner wound. The cry of the wound fuels the import of the speech.
Deep wounds invariably come up in regular conversations. The idea has presence and influence.
If protagonists draw on this, and yet refuse to become the heroine, and refuse to accept anyone as heroes? Then what happens?
There is a script here that’s refusing to become a script.
A little like us. You become a worker, but do not desire to be a worker. This counter-current never settles.
What are you saying? Is it that the foundry, the casting, is always partial and incomplete, and it is in this incompleteness that the ‘new’ emerges?
And you want us to recognise that this incompleteness faces the open, the multiple.
And that the gap between consent and refusal is turbulent. It is fertile. Always germinating. This gap is never empty.
Exciting! Time for tea for all. And also, my question: When do we sense the force and the pressure of this gap the most? Let me clarify that I do understand that we sense the heat waves of this fluctuation everyday. My question is, when do these waves travel between us to become rebellious love for life?
You always tease us with a puzzle as you pose a question. Like a song that asks how a song came to be. Questions and puzzles are what make us travel each day in search of many.
And we know this concretely. A murmur may start at a department. It then travels quickly to other departments. It gathers a storm rapidly; it fluctuates.
These storms do not have a hero. Not many words get spoken. They make tremendous impact.
How do you make a script out of this? Few words. When the wave started, when it became visible, when it rose, when it engulfed — all this stays outside the image. It is neither an event, nor is it transparent.
No hero. No herione.
But many songs.
And hard-edged counter attacks.
Incarceration, courts, and dates. An imposed exhaustion.
Maybe some heroes can make an entry here to help explain the exhaustion back to you!
The instant we draw energy from the gap and break through the threshold of codes that partition life, law-givers become crazed and go into overdrive. With punishment. With lectures on moral codes.
And many words are exiled from the dictionary. Rebellion, revolt, rebel, refusal.
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 351
September 2017
Page 1: Turbulent, Fertile Gap
Page 2: Many Thoughts Amidst Conversations with Many
Page 3: Claim your Bonus; Commoning; Accidents
Page 4: Surajpur, Noida: Mayapuri, Delhi
Seriously? On whom?
On me.
Why?
You don’t believe, eh, that I can think of myself in the role of a heroine in a film?
No, that’s not it. I’m surprised because you always think against the ‘hero’.
How do you enter a script without being a hero? It’s a puzzle. If you’re not a hero, you won’t get lines through which to speak what you think. And if you do become a hero, you’ll be asked to speak lines that are against the basis of life itself.
Then become an anti-hero!
That’s a possibility. Anti-heroes get some lines of their own. But those are then tied to some inner wound. The cry of the wound fuels the import of the speech.
Deep wounds invariably come up in regular conversations. The idea has presence and influence.
If protagonists draw on this, and yet refuse to become the heroine, and refuse to accept anyone as heroes? Then what happens?
There is a script here that’s refusing to become a script.
A little like us. You become a worker, but do not desire to be a worker. This counter-current never settles.
What are you saying? Is it that the foundry, the casting, is always partial and incomplete, and it is in this incompleteness that the ‘new’ emerges?
And you want us to recognise that this incompleteness faces the open, the multiple.
And that the gap between consent and refusal is turbulent. It is fertile. Always germinating. This gap is never empty.
Exciting! Time for tea for all. And also, my question: When do we sense the force and the pressure of this gap the most? Let me clarify that I do understand that we sense the heat waves of this fluctuation everyday. My question is, when do these waves travel between us to become rebellious love for life?
You always tease us with a puzzle as you pose a question. Like a song that asks how a song came to be. Questions and puzzles are what make us travel each day in search of many.
And we know this concretely. A murmur may start at a department. It then travels quickly to other departments. It gathers a storm rapidly; it fluctuates.
These storms do not have a hero. Not many words get spoken. They make tremendous impact.
How do you make a script out of this? Few words. When the wave started, when it became visible, when it rose, when it engulfed — all this stays outside the image. It is neither an event, nor is it transparent.
No hero. No herione.
But many songs.
And hard-edged counter attacks.
Incarceration, courts, and dates. An imposed exhaustion.
Maybe some heroes can make an entry here to help explain the exhaustion back to you!
The instant we draw energy from the gap and break through the threshold of codes that partition life, law-givers become crazed and go into overdrive. With punishment. With lectures on moral codes.
And many words are exiled from the dictionary. Rebellion, revolt, rebel, refusal.
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 351
September 2017
Page 1: Turbulent, Fertile Gap
Page 2: Many Thoughts Amidst Conversations with Many
Page 3: Claim your Bonus; Commoning; Accidents
Page 4: Surajpur, Noida: Mayapuri, Delhi
Monday, September 4, 2017
A spree of rebellions in Noida – Greater Noida
translation from FMS August 2017
A spree of rebellions in Noida – Greater Noida
50 kilometres off Delhi. Posh multi-storey apartments spread over 25 acres. 2700 residential units. Gate-guard-CCTV cameras. Mahagun Moderne society. Early in the morning on 12 July 2017, a mob, led by hundreds of women doing domestic work, collected from illegal slums surrounding the apartment complex and stormed into Mahagun Moderne. Stones, sticks, iron rods. Riots. Armed police personnel arrived in four trucks.
Zohra, a worker, had been demanding outstanding dues of Rs 3500 for the past 2 months. On the evening of 11 July, her employer accused her of stealing and shut her up in a room. When Zohra's husband went to Mahagun Moderne society at night to search for her, he was told that she was not there. He came back with policemen, and they were again told that Zohra was not in the society. Discussions during nighttime among the the women doing sweeping, laundering, cooking-serving-dish washing work in the society and men doing construction work, etc. living in the slums. At 4 in the morning, women from the slums started collecting outside the gates of Mahagun Moderne. The crowd swelled. Commotion. Guards brought a semi-conscious Zohra from inside the society.
The agitating workers did not physically attack any resident of Mahagun Moderne society. Only some glass was shattered. However, the 2700 resident families of the posh colony were terrorized. One resident said she along with her husband and son hid in the bathroom for an hour and a half to save her life. On 13 July, the residents decided to bar all domestic workers from entering the society. Many families ordered food from outside.
“The point is that they must be taught a lesson ...If they can unite, why can’t we?” a resident of the society said.
Another said she woke up an hour early. Planning to buy “a wiper which is made with new-age technology” for cleaning. “They are like a bone stuck in our throats — can’t be swallowed, can’t be spat out"- another resident. It is necessary to be vigilant.
“They tried to show that they did not have rights. I feel that we do not have any human rights. We are the poor ones,” said another from the housing complex.
“We worship them, because they are such an important part of our lives ... We first feed them and then eat. I would give her tea before making her do her chores.”
“I think they hate us. There is a definite class divide. They hate us for our money."
The head of security at Mahagun Moderne - “Right now, the residents are very angry and shocked. But before long, they will have to find new maids. How will life go on otherwise?”
Noida’s superintendent of police: "it was striking how quickly the homeowners had turned on their employees, accusing them falsely.."
The police arrested 78 workers on the night of 12 July. None of the residents of the society had suffered as much as a scratch, yet, 13 of the workers were charged with attempt to murder.
And, a union minister came to Mahagun Moderne for a meeting with the residents of the societies of that area. Assuring the residents of their safety, the minister said that the 13 arrested workers "will not get bail for years to come".
Instead of sitting on the floor, domestic workers now sit on sofas. They sit on chairs even while their employers are around. They answer back. Riddle: Why is it that the poor don't kill the rich?
These invisible workers, lakhs of domestic workers are time-bombs.....
Unions to rein them in: At the district court, a lawyer said that the police officials had to be given Rs 600 in bribe to procure copies of the FIRs against the 13 arrested workers. A Delhi based union intervened and collected Rs 1000 from the workers on the pretext of bribing the police...
(Information obtained from reports by Ms. Suhasini and Ms. Ellen in the New York Times, Ms. Anumeha in the Caravan Magazine, Ms. Kalpana in Scroll, Mr. Manu in Mint)
Mobile phone company, Vivo India which was the official sponsor for this year's IPL (cricket tournament business), has a manufacturing unit at the World Trade Center in Greater Noida. Vivo India has bought the title-sponsorship of IPL for the next five years for Rs 22 billion. Vivo is the sponsor for the Pro Kabaddi (a sport) league as well.
Demand for Vivo phones fell after the IPL season. A majority of the fifteen thousand workers assembling the mobile handsets are temporary workers. Production line workers are paid a monthly salary of Rs 7000 ($109). As per policy, the company started sacking workers. 500-1000 workers had been fired and there were talks to fire 2000 more workers. On 25 July, at 8 in the morning, 20 workers who had come to the factory for duty were made to sit in the tea area for settling their dues. During lunch break, another 100 temporary workers reached the spot. All of a sudden, the workers rebelled. Windows were broken. Cellphone assembly units were demolished. The terrorized management called the police. Additional guards were rushed in from security companies. Six workers were arrested and the company put up a notice suspending operations on 26 July.
The frenzied Vivo management spoke in two voices: the violence happened because of a misunderstanding. The workers were not being sacked, they were only being sent to another section for training. "The workers confused 'move' with 'remove'." It is the company's policy to sack workers to maintain and improve productivity.
Shaken by the workers' revolt, the Vivo management, along with representatives of the embassy of the People’s Republic of China, met police officials in the district. The police assured them of safety and asked the company to inform the police in advance about its retrenchment plans, so that the police can be vigilant in preventing a repeat of 25 July.
On 26 July, workers of Majestic Auto's factory in Greater Noida stopped production protesting the sacking of 8 workers by the management.
2500 workers of Priyagold biscuit factory at Surajpur rebelled on 29 June at 8pm. Police personnel came to the factory in over 20 vehicles to control the workers. On the following day, 30 June, the workers did not go to the factory.
Workers upsurge was seen in March 2017 in the Oppo mobile factory in Noida.
Three thousand workers of Orient Craft garment factory at Noida, Sector-63 revolted on 1 October 2016. Forces from many police stations had to be called to control the workers.
Open defiance of workers at LG India's factory at Greater Noida in July 2016...
180 million mobile handsets are manufactured annually in the Noida-Greater Noida area in nearly 25 factories such as Samsung, Lava, Intex, Oppo, Vivo, etc. Companies are extremely worried over the increasing revolts of workers in the region. The India head of a mobile company said that a meeting of prominent mobile handset manufacturers in Noida-Greater Noida is being planned to draw up strategies to deal with the rebellions.
(Information obtained from reports by Mr. Vinit in the Hindustan Times, Mr. Arnab in Business Standard and Mr. Shafaque in the Times of India.)
A spree of rebellions in Noida – Greater Noida
50 kilometres off Delhi. Posh multi-storey apartments spread over 25 acres. 2700 residential units. Gate-guard-CCTV cameras. Mahagun Moderne society. Early in the morning on 12 July 2017, a mob, led by hundreds of women doing domestic work, collected from illegal slums surrounding the apartment complex and stormed into Mahagun Moderne. Stones, sticks, iron rods. Riots. Armed police personnel arrived in four trucks.
Zohra, a worker, had been demanding outstanding dues of Rs 3500 for the past 2 months. On the evening of 11 July, her employer accused her of stealing and shut her up in a room. When Zohra's husband went to Mahagun Moderne society at night to search for her, he was told that she was not there. He came back with policemen, and they were again told that Zohra was not in the society. Discussions during nighttime among the the women doing sweeping, laundering, cooking-serving-dish washing work in the society and men doing construction work, etc. living in the slums. At 4 in the morning, women from the slums started collecting outside the gates of Mahagun Moderne. The crowd swelled. Commotion. Guards brought a semi-conscious Zohra from inside the society.
The agitating workers did not physically attack any resident of Mahagun Moderne society. Only some glass was shattered. However, the 2700 resident families of the posh colony were terrorized. One resident said she along with her husband and son hid in the bathroom for an hour and a half to save her life. On 13 July, the residents decided to bar all domestic workers from entering the society. Many families ordered food from outside.
“The point is that they must be taught a lesson ...If they can unite, why can’t we?” a resident of the society said.
Another said she woke up an hour early. Planning to buy “a wiper which is made with new-age technology” for cleaning. “They are like a bone stuck in our throats — can’t be swallowed, can’t be spat out"- another resident. It is necessary to be vigilant.
“They tried to show that they did not have rights. I feel that we do not have any human rights. We are the poor ones,” said another from the housing complex.
“We worship them, because they are such an important part of our lives ... We first feed them and then eat. I would give her tea before making her do her chores.”
“I think they hate us. There is a definite class divide. They hate us for our money."
The head of security at Mahagun Moderne - “Right now, the residents are very angry and shocked. But before long, they will have to find new maids. How will life go on otherwise?”
Noida’s superintendent of police: "it was striking how quickly the homeowners had turned on their employees, accusing them falsely.."
The police arrested 78 workers on the night of 12 July. None of the residents of the society had suffered as much as a scratch, yet, 13 of the workers were charged with attempt to murder.
And, a union minister came to Mahagun Moderne for a meeting with the residents of the societies of that area. Assuring the residents of their safety, the minister said that the 13 arrested workers "will not get bail for years to come".
Instead of sitting on the floor, domestic workers now sit on sofas. They sit on chairs even while their employers are around. They answer back. Riddle: Why is it that the poor don't kill the rich?
These invisible workers, lakhs of domestic workers are time-bombs.....
Unions to rein them in: At the district court, a lawyer said that the police officials had to be given Rs 600 in bribe to procure copies of the FIRs against the 13 arrested workers. A Delhi based union intervened and collected Rs 1000 from the workers on the pretext of bribing the police...
(Information obtained from reports by Ms. Suhasini and Ms. Ellen in the New York Times, Ms. Anumeha in the Caravan Magazine, Ms. Kalpana in Scroll, Mr. Manu in Mint)
Mobile phone company, Vivo India which was the official sponsor for this year's IPL (cricket tournament business), has a manufacturing unit at the World Trade Center in Greater Noida. Vivo India has bought the title-sponsorship of IPL for the next five years for Rs 22 billion. Vivo is the sponsor for the Pro Kabaddi (a sport) league as well.
Demand for Vivo phones fell after the IPL season. A majority of the fifteen thousand workers assembling the mobile handsets are temporary workers. Production line workers are paid a monthly salary of Rs 7000 ($109). As per policy, the company started sacking workers. 500-1000 workers had been fired and there were talks to fire 2000 more workers. On 25 July, at 8 in the morning, 20 workers who had come to the factory for duty were made to sit in the tea area for settling their dues. During lunch break, another 100 temporary workers reached the spot. All of a sudden, the workers rebelled. Windows were broken. Cellphone assembly units were demolished. The terrorized management called the police. Additional guards were rushed in from security companies. Six workers were arrested and the company put up a notice suspending operations on 26 July.
The frenzied Vivo management spoke in two voices: the violence happened because of a misunderstanding. The workers were not being sacked, they were only being sent to another section for training. "The workers confused 'move' with 'remove'." It is the company's policy to sack workers to maintain and improve productivity.
Shaken by the workers' revolt, the Vivo management, along with representatives of the embassy of the People’s Republic of China, met police officials in the district. The police assured them of safety and asked the company to inform the police in advance about its retrenchment plans, so that the police can be vigilant in preventing a repeat of 25 July.
On 26 July, workers of Majestic Auto's factory in Greater Noida stopped production protesting the sacking of 8 workers by the management.
2500 workers of Priyagold biscuit factory at Surajpur rebelled on 29 June at 8pm. Police personnel came to the factory in over 20 vehicles to control the workers. On the following day, 30 June, the workers did not go to the factory.
Workers upsurge was seen in March 2017 in the Oppo mobile factory in Noida.
Three thousand workers of Orient Craft garment factory at Noida, Sector-63 revolted on 1 October 2016. Forces from many police stations had to be called to control the workers.
Open defiance of workers at LG India's factory at Greater Noida in July 2016...
180 million mobile handsets are manufactured annually in the Noida-Greater Noida area in nearly 25 factories such as Samsung, Lava, Intex, Oppo, Vivo, etc. Companies are extremely worried over the increasing revolts of workers in the region. The India head of a mobile company said that a meeting of prominent mobile handset manufacturers in Noida-Greater Noida is being planned to draw up strategies to deal with the rebellions.
(Information obtained from reports by Mr. Vinit in the Hindustan Times, Mr. Arnab in Business Standard and Mr. Shafaque in the Times of India.)
Managerial Theory, Part I: James Burnham & the Managerial Revolution
https://dissidentright.com/2016/09/18/managerial-theory-james-burnham-the-managerial-revolution/
fms August 2017
“Two days certain. Three days uncertain. Two days certain. Three days uncertain. Two days certain. Three days uncertain.”
“What are you chanting and smiling about?”
“Just repeating what a manager surmised today to press and police.”
“Maybe it’s the last three weeks. A monsoon of rebellion.”
“And today had an argument with a friend who denounced co-workers for being unable to do anything together.”
“What an odd claim! These are thoughts that cut into thinking itself! I do wonder if they’re mere repetitions of what power would like us to think.”
“Was telling him, just look at the rebellion of 300 workers in Noida. It reminds of the shivers and radiance the Maruti rebellion brought everywhere. Ministers have come running, such is the fear.”
“So funny, the assertion of Manu’s Laws of Punishment to give courage to crouching house owners. Law, the constitution, legal process, and investigation were all pushed aside to say — No bails will be allowed.”
“Ha ha! These are not forts, but paper-mâché acropolises. It took five thousand years to masquerade the Laws of Punishment as justice, and one strong push to melt away the disguise.”
“Agreed, but a correction. This is not a lone shake. This shake is one in a long series. Unremitting.”
“Yes. It’s important that when we see one massive shake, we not think only of that specific force. Sometimes we do see one moment—a fluctuation in a tremor—up close, and feel its scale. But vibrations of this tremor move and dance in the companionship of vibrations of many such tremors.”
“In companionship of tremors. Fantastic. Last week about 800 workers in an auto-parts company, learning from construction workers in Saudi Arabia, did not appear for work. They stayed home. Rested. Made love. Wrote poetry. The next day as well. The third day, same thing. Fourth day, ditto. Management baffled. Armed police standing outside factory gates, confused.”
“Let me extend this song line. By now you would have seen, on WhatsApp, a calm and proud image of a few thousand workers in yellow uniform and helmets?”
“Yes! That was a photo of workers resting after having ransacked the management office.”
“Let me extend the song line, taking it again through Noida. This time it’s a mobile phone factory. More than 15,000 workers. Production vacillates sharply. They hire you, make you work, then let you go. Snip snip. So that this habit of the management does not become habitual and embedded, a rebellion sang itself in. Machinery on one floor of the factory was smashed. The tremor is massive.”
“I’m running late, so listen to my song. It’s Okhla. A garment factory. A drone of urgent shipment, drumbeats of deadlines. And then, another tune emerges. At 6, all machines shut down and everyone sat around them. They looked quietly at one another. They smiled. A tranquility descends. The chairman and MD break into a sweat. What do they say? New grade will be applied, and all arrears will be paid. With immediate effect.”
“Certainty, two days. Uncertainty, three days.”
“Keep the recent three weeks in mind and think of the last 7 years.”
“You suggest another reality around us, of rebellious expressions. And to string these into more and more song lines.”
“It’s Gurgaon, and groups of about 100 workers who work in houses assemble at the gates of housing societies. The resident association calls the police. The constables stand up, smiling.”
“Certainty, two days. Uncertainty, three days.”
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 350
August 2017
Page 1: In Companionship, Fantastic.
Page 2: Many Thoughts Amidst Conversations with Many
Page 3: Steps in Togetherness; Commoning; Accidents
Page 4: Noida to Greater Noida: Waves of Rebellions
“What are you chanting and smiling about?”
“Just repeating what a manager surmised today to press and police.”
“Maybe it’s the last three weeks. A monsoon of rebellion.”
“And today had an argument with a friend who denounced co-workers for being unable to do anything together.”
“What an odd claim! These are thoughts that cut into thinking itself! I do wonder if they’re mere repetitions of what power would like us to think.”
“Was telling him, just look at the rebellion of 300 workers in Noida. It reminds of the shivers and radiance the Maruti rebellion brought everywhere. Ministers have come running, such is the fear.”
“So funny, the assertion of Manu’s Laws of Punishment to give courage to crouching house owners. Law, the constitution, legal process, and investigation were all pushed aside to say — No bails will be allowed.”
“Ha ha! These are not forts, but paper-mâché acropolises. It took five thousand years to masquerade the Laws of Punishment as justice, and one strong push to melt away the disguise.”
“Agreed, but a correction. This is not a lone shake. This shake is one in a long series. Unremitting.”
“Yes. It’s important that when we see one massive shake, we not think only of that specific force. Sometimes we do see one moment—a fluctuation in a tremor—up close, and feel its scale. But vibrations of this tremor move and dance in the companionship of vibrations of many such tremors.”
“In companionship of tremors. Fantastic. Last week about 800 workers in an auto-parts company, learning from construction workers in Saudi Arabia, did not appear for work. They stayed home. Rested. Made love. Wrote poetry. The next day as well. The third day, same thing. Fourth day, ditto. Management baffled. Armed police standing outside factory gates, confused.”
“Let me extend this song line. By now you would have seen, on WhatsApp, a calm and proud image of a few thousand workers in yellow uniform and helmets?”
“Yes! That was a photo of workers resting after having ransacked the management office.”
“Let me extend the song line, taking it again through Noida. This time it’s a mobile phone factory. More than 15,000 workers. Production vacillates sharply. They hire you, make you work, then let you go. Snip snip. So that this habit of the management does not become habitual and embedded, a rebellion sang itself in. Machinery on one floor of the factory was smashed. The tremor is massive.”
“I’m running late, so listen to my song. It’s Okhla. A garment factory. A drone of urgent shipment, drumbeats of deadlines. And then, another tune emerges. At 6, all machines shut down and everyone sat around them. They looked quietly at one another. They smiled. A tranquility descends. The chairman and MD break into a sweat. What do they say? New grade will be applied, and all arrears will be paid. With immediate effect.”
“Certainty, two days. Uncertainty, three days.”
“Keep the recent three weeks in mind and think of the last 7 years.”
“You suggest another reality around us, of rebellious expressions. And to string these into more and more song lines.”
“It’s Gurgaon, and groups of about 100 workers who work in houses assemble at the gates of housing societies. The resident association calls the police. The constables stand up, smiling.”
“Certainty, two days. Uncertainty, three days.”
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 350
August 2017
Page 1: In Companionship, Fantastic.
Page 2: Many Thoughts Amidst Conversations with Many
Page 3: Steps in Togetherness; Commoning; Accidents
Page 4: Noida to Greater Noida: Waves of Rebellions
FMS September 2017 by baatein1 on Scribd
Sunday, July 16, 2017
fms july 2017
Friend, think of yourself as a wise person.
Why?!
You become wise when you step away from yourself as a condition-express, and speak your thoughts, your doubts, and your own and others’ experience of living. And, listen, we can all do this but fail to, as we do not think of ourselves as being knowledgable enough.
Maybe we are in search of the knowledgable.
Oh idiot! If you do not think of yourself as being knowledgable, then how will you admire the knowledge of others? And how will you be able to distinguish if you are hearing someone express wisdom or merely self-interest cloaked in seductive language?
So you mean wisdom and self-interest are different orders of thinking?
Try a thought experiment. Think of something that you consider wise. Then check how close, or far, you find it from your self-interest.
Listening to you both I sense a tension. I would like to understand. To me the clash is actually between intelligence of specialised expertise and wisdom. Take for example lawyers and managers. We gauge them via their special expertise. Sure, before some, our capacity to weigh weakens.
Thanks sister! I was struggling to think on this. ‘Specialised expertise intelligence’ is such a clear formulation. And yes, it overlaps and is in conflict with, irritates, opposes, displaces our wisdom of living. This passes through every body.
Maybe this is the reason that when someone says to me, ‘you are ignorant’, it hurts. It feels like I have failed to give a sense of who I am.
I remember an event. In some factories, workers were given wages to write for three days.
Wow! This is an exciting change. Many people in the world get wages to think and write, and we hear they have production targets to measure their thinking. Anyway, this trickle down is encouraging.
What did they write?
They did not write on any specific topic. They made no show of their specific expertise. They drifted far from their condition. They did not write any petition. They did not write a pamphlet.
Then what is left to write?!!
Thought sparks for conversation between the wise. They went far from self-interest. There was a fragrance of rebellion. Some couplets. Some skies. Some unknown worlds. Some song lines.
Then what happened?
Word of these sparks spread to many factories and many places, and there is mounting excitement.
This is exactly what I was saying. These knowledge sparks and their spread loosens the grip of specialised expertise and its manifold capture of thought.
This wisdom, these knowledge sparks, are built over time through dense networks of life. They extend over generations, exceed locations, move between earth and sky, between friends, through workplaces, and also through night buses.
I need to write this conversation down. It’s got complicated. The idea that wisdom and knowledge are with everyone, and traverse time and place, in constant attrition with specialised knowledge—I need to examine this.
We will meet you here in your auto again soon. And we’ll bring along some friends who got entrapped in the snare of specialised knowledge and lost their jobs. This needs some discussing together.
Of course, my friend. Anytime.
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 349
July 2017
Page 1: The Conflict of Wisdom and Expert Intelligence
Page 2: Many utterances amidst conversations with many
Page 3: Commoning; Travelled so many paths
Page 4: Experiences from MESL and Boni Polymer; From NOIDA; Conversation at Naharpool.
PDF enclosed.
Contributions welcome
We currently print 16,000 copies at the monthly print cost of Rs. 14,000/-. We are able to meet this through contributions. To sustain us, you can send a bank transfer. Please write to us, and we will send you the bank details.
Why?!
You become wise when you step away from yourself as a condition-express, and speak your thoughts, your doubts, and your own and others’ experience of living. And, listen, we can all do this but fail to, as we do not think of ourselves as being knowledgable enough.
Maybe we are in search of the knowledgable.
Oh idiot! If you do not think of yourself as being knowledgable, then how will you admire the knowledge of others? And how will you be able to distinguish if you are hearing someone express wisdom or merely self-interest cloaked in seductive language?
So you mean wisdom and self-interest are different orders of thinking?
Try a thought experiment. Think of something that you consider wise. Then check how close, or far, you find it from your self-interest.
Listening to you both I sense a tension. I would like to understand. To me the clash is actually between intelligence of specialised expertise and wisdom. Take for example lawyers and managers. We gauge them via their special expertise. Sure, before some, our capacity to weigh weakens.
Thanks sister! I was struggling to think on this. ‘Specialised expertise intelligence’ is such a clear formulation. And yes, it overlaps and is in conflict with, irritates, opposes, displaces our wisdom of living. This passes through every body.
Maybe this is the reason that when someone says to me, ‘you are ignorant’, it hurts. It feels like I have failed to give a sense of who I am.
I remember an event. In some factories, workers were given wages to write for three days.
Wow! This is an exciting change. Many people in the world get wages to think and write, and we hear they have production targets to measure their thinking. Anyway, this trickle down is encouraging.
What did they write?
They did not write on any specific topic. They made no show of their specific expertise. They drifted far from their condition. They did not write any petition. They did not write a pamphlet.
Then what is left to write?!!
Thought sparks for conversation between the wise. They went far from self-interest. There was a fragrance of rebellion. Some couplets. Some skies. Some unknown worlds. Some song lines.
Then what happened?
Word of these sparks spread to many factories and many places, and there is mounting excitement.
This is exactly what I was saying. These knowledge sparks and their spread loosens the grip of specialised expertise and its manifold capture of thought.
This wisdom, these knowledge sparks, are built over time through dense networks of life. They extend over generations, exceed locations, move between earth and sky, between friends, through workplaces, and also through night buses.
I need to write this conversation down. It’s got complicated. The idea that wisdom and knowledge are with everyone, and traverse time and place, in constant attrition with specialised knowledge—I need to examine this.
We will meet you here in your auto again soon. And we’ll bring along some friends who got entrapped in the snare of specialised knowledge and lost their jobs. This needs some discussing together.
Of course, my friend. Anytime.
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 349
July 2017
Page 1: The Conflict of Wisdom and Expert Intelligence
Page 2: Many utterances amidst conversations with many
Page 3: Commoning; Travelled so many paths
Page 4: Experiences from MESL and Boni Polymer; From NOIDA; Conversation at Naharpool.
PDF enclosed.
Contributions welcome
We currently print 16,000 copies at the monthly print cost of Rs. 14,000/-. We are able to meet this through contributions. To sustain us, you can send a bank transfer. Please write to us, and we will send you the bank details.
Fms July 2017 by baatein1 on Scribd
Saturday, June 24, 2017
fms june 2017
They are really dodging implementing the new minimum wage scale.
What are they saying?
(Some 15-20 people had gathered)
They say there's a stay from the courts.
It's always like this. They always start with a lie. Then they will say, we'll do it when everyone else does it. Then they'll say they are going to have to close the factory and relocate to where the minimum is lower.
My suggestion is that the scale should be made the same across the capital region. Then the poor fellows won't have to dance about relocating so much.
(Some 30-35 people had gathered)
I say, let us all take a three day holiday.
Say again.
A break. Feast, roam, gather, meet. Take a walk on the streets with your family. And when night falls, play drums, sing, dance. Do this, and you'll have the new scale in three days.
(Sounds of laughter and agreement filled the slowly growing gathering)
What an amazing scenario. 500,000 of us, with our families, shutting the industrial area down for a holiday, celebrating and enjoying ourselves.
That's bound to frighten the management.
This does happen now and then, but with 500,000 families, you've changed the playing field.
Millions awake at night, in song and dance.
Fantastic!
(The gathering grew)
It's not like last time companies implemented the new grade on their own.
In our block, we stopped work in five factories, and only then was it implemented.
This happened in many factories.
Listen, I've been working for thirty years. Nothing is given to you; everything has to be taken. Let's talk about how.
Let me recount something.
Really? From how long ago?
Not from that long ago, sister. Just two years ago. 2015. You all probably remember. The month was February. Woollens had given way to lighter clothes. Faces were shining. Spring was in the air.
Are you recounting or imagining?
Both, my friend. A little memory, a little fable. The milieu was radiant. In the beginning, it was five hours long. What energy! Managers and directors fled from factories. Security and police stayed distracted by the spring air.
We remember. That is the milieu we grew up in. The aggression of managers and supervisors receded. We'd just entered the life of work, and were told these moments are special.
My young friend, prepare. These milieus are made. They also break. And they have to be made again. And then again.
Do pay attention to what I am saying -- production targets and intensity are continuously raised. That's management. No one exploits oneself wilfully. No one uses ones own intelligence for heightening self-exploitation. So the aggressive language. And so the milieu has to be made and remade.
(The gathering, by now of 50-60, brewed with excitement and thoughtfulness)
I'm going to take this conversation to the night bus.
Night bus! What bus do you take?
We all take different buses. Different routes, and different groups. But conversations, songs, stories, debates zigzag and thread through all routes. And these days, because temporary drivers and conductors are on strike, the group in our bus has become quite large. It's major fun.
Standing here I see how a conversation struck between three people can, in a tiny span, catch and spread to 10-15, to 30-40, to 50-60, to hundreds and thousands, to lakhs.
And every story teller, every narrator, every portraitist, every doubter, every opponent, every dissident, and every poet leaves her imprint, thickens, speeds up, slows down, spins, turns, gives new energy to the plot and the scenario. Now that's what I call a milieu.
In moments like this, like this present occasion, we catch a glimpse of such milieus, sense the breath of others, and see poets in every one of us.
There are many poets amongst us.
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 348
June 2017
Page 1: There are many poets amongst us
Page 2: Many thoughts amidst conversations in and with transient groups
Page 3: In Myanmar; Commoning; Not to become targets
Page 4: Night bus; Experiences from MESL
PDF enclosed.
Contributions welcome
We currently print 16,000 copies at the monthly print cost of Rs. 14,000/-. We are able to meet this through contributions. To sustain us, you can send a bank transfer. Please write to us, and we will send you the bank details.
Distribution is over one month from 25 places in Faridabad, Okhla, Gurgaon, NOIDA and Manesar. Through this, we enter into thousands of conversations. Please write to us if you would like to join us; we will let you know of the place and time.
What are they saying?
(Some 15-20 people had gathered)
They say there's a stay from the courts.
It's always like this. They always start with a lie. Then they will say, we'll do it when everyone else does it. Then they'll say they are going to have to close the factory and relocate to where the minimum is lower.
My suggestion is that the scale should be made the same across the capital region. Then the poor fellows won't have to dance about relocating so much.
(Some 30-35 people had gathered)
I say, let us all take a three day holiday.
Say again.
A break. Feast, roam, gather, meet. Take a walk on the streets with your family. And when night falls, play drums, sing, dance. Do this, and you'll have the new scale in three days.
(Sounds of laughter and agreement filled the slowly growing gathering)
What an amazing scenario. 500,000 of us, with our families, shutting the industrial area down for a holiday, celebrating and enjoying ourselves.
That's bound to frighten the management.
This does happen now and then, but with 500,000 families, you've changed the playing field.
Millions awake at night, in song and dance.
Fantastic!
(The gathering grew)
It's not like last time companies implemented the new grade on their own.
In our block, we stopped work in five factories, and only then was it implemented.
This happened in many factories.
Listen, I've been working for thirty years. Nothing is given to you; everything has to be taken. Let's talk about how.
Let me recount something.
Really? From how long ago?
Not from that long ago, sister. Just two years ago. 2015. You all probably remember. The month was February. Woollens had given way to lighter clothes. Faces were shining. Spring was in the air.
Are you recounting or imagining?
Both, my friend. A little memory, a little fable. The milieu was radiant. In the beginning, it was five hours long. What energy! Managers and directors fled from factories. Security and police stayed distracted by the spring air.
We remember. That is the milieu we grew up in. The aggression of managers and supervisors receded. We'd just entered the life of work, and were told these moments are special.
My young friend, prepare. These milieus are made. They also break. And they have to be made again. And then again.
Do pay attention to what I am saying -- production targets and intensity are continuously raised. That's management. No one exploits oneself wilfully. No one uses ones own intelligence for heightening self-exploitation. So the aggressive language. And so the milieu has to be made and remade.
(The gathering, by now of 50-60, brewed with excitement and thoughtfulness)
I'm going to take this conversation to the night bus.
Night bus! What bus do you take?
We all take different buses. Different routes, and different groups. But conversations, songs, stories, debates zigzag and thread through all routes. And these days, because temporary drivers and conductors are on strike, the group in our bus has become quite large. It's major fun.
Standing here I see how a conversation struck between three people can, in a tiny span, catch and spread to 10-15, to 30-40, to 50-60, to hundreds and thousands, to lakhs.
And every story teller, every narrator, every portraitist, every doubter, every opponent, every dissident, and every poet leaves her imprint, thickens, speeds up, slows down, spins, turns, gives new energy to the plot and the scenario. Now that's what I call a milieu.
In moments like this, like this present occasion, we catch a glimpse of such milieus, sense the breath of others, and see poets in every one of us.
There are many poets amongst us.
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 348
June 2017
Page 1: There are many poets amongst us
Page 2: Many thoughts amidst conversations in and with transient groups
Page 3: In Myanmar; Commoning; Not to become targets
Page 4: Night bus; Experiences from MESL
PDF enclosed.
Contributions welcome
We currently print 16,000 copies at the monthly print cost of Rs. 14,000/-. We are able to meet this through contributions. To sustain us, you can send a bank transfer. Please write to us, and we will send you the bank details.
Distribution is over one month from 25 places in Faridabad, Okhla, Gurgaon, NOIDA and Manesar. Through this, we enter into thousands of conversations. Please write to us if you would like to join us; we will let you know of the place and time.
FMS_June2017 by baatein1 on Scribd
fms May 2017
"You look rested. No duty?"
"Hello. I had a wonderful meal of millet khichuri with prawn pickle. So decided to go off duty."
"You take an off so easily? You face no hassles?"
"Production is somewhat down these days. A storm is brewing. So I'm storing up some energy."
"Sarita, isn't this what you were also saying?"
"I was explaining to you that work is down in our place. And there's a saying, when you catch a slide, build up for unemployed times."
"Ha!Ha! I've been out of work for three months now. So there are no hurdles to speech. I'm listening a lot. Am reading a lot too."
"Ha! You talk like being unemployed is a freedom."
"I'm not making it out to be freedom. I'm practicing freedom. Freedom is also a game. The more you practice it, the better it expresses itself. You too are always practicing its ways."
"In China, I've heard, young workers write poems on mobile phones and send them to each other. These poems play out all facets of living."
"To snatch time and write songs, in joy and stubbornness, is a revolt."
"A few weeks back a newspaper carried a portrait of a young worker who took out an hour everyday to write poetry. The worker was quoted as saying that in his poetry he is trying to investigate and understand the import of the word 'equality'."
"This is revolt."
"Whenever it seems that production has come to a sudden halt, it is usually, actually, a swell of the hum between us -- of 1200 to 1500 people. There are words, there is a rhythm, and a feeling runs through us, but it is inaudible. Not heard. But you sway to it. It can only be lived."
"Have been to many places
Have drunk water in many places
It has been hard on my belly
But have learned to be carefree
With strangers."
"Time shortens
at times
Maybe we have to make new time
Friends, together
we take a holiday
to bring the horizon close."
"Let me tell you a story about drawing in the horizon. I've been running into this one good fellow repeatedly over the last five days at the teashop. The first day he was full of invectives, exclamations, and deep sighs about life! The next day, he and his 120 co-workers had stopped work, and he said with a wry smile, 'Life sucks'. Then on the third day, workers in two more factories of the same company stopped work."
"And then? Now what did he say then?"
"We met. He said, 'It's a hot day. Let me treat you to a good cup of tea.' And then, sipping his tea, he said, 'Do you sense our heft now?'"
"Three days, big fluctuations. Whenever we meet others, it's amidst intersecting arcs of the fluctuations of many."
"Poetry and song strike at the intervals between these intersections. They are stitches in the ascending and descending notes of these fluctuations."
"How is your good fellow amidst so many with such ease?"
"Tell me. I've been out of work for three months. I'm inside poetry now. I have time to listen. Don't hesitate. Tell me all your tales and hows."
"Tales, hows, and poetry. Three words with a lot of heft. The fluctuations, collisions, and entwined solos of these three runs through us, and it transforms the scent of the milieu."
"Far from where I was born,
and with whom I grew up
Making new
relations and friends
My arms open."
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 347
May 2017
Page 1: Tales, Hows, and Poetry
Page 2: Conversations in and with thousands in transient groups
Page 3: Commoning; Not to become Targets; 1st of May
Page 4: Many Thoughts, in conversation with Many
PDF enclosed.
Contributions welcome
We currently print 16,000 copies at the monthly print cost of Rs. 14,000/-. We are able to meet this through contributions. To sustain us, you can send a bank transfer. Please write to us, and we will send you the bank details.
Distribution is over one month from 25 places in Faridabad, Okhla, Gurgaon, NOIDA and Manesar. Through this, we enter into thousands of conversations. Please write to us if you would like to join us; we will let you know of the place and time.
"Hello. I had a wonderful meal of millet khichuri with prawn pickle. So decided to go off duty."
"You take an off so easily? You face no hassles?"
"Production is somewhat down these days. A storm is brewing. So I'm storing up some energy."
"Sarita, isn't this what you were also saying?"
"I was explaining to you that work is down in our place. And there's a saying, when you catch a slide, build up for unemployed times."
"Ha!Ha! I've been out of work for three months now. So there are no hurdles to speech. I'm listening a lot. Am reading a lot too."
"Ha! You talk like being unemployed is a freedom."
"I'm not making it out to be freedom. I'm practicing freedom. Freedom is also a game. The more you practice it, the better it expresses itself. You too are always practicing its ways."
"In China, I've heard, young workers write poems on mobile phones and send them to each other. These poems play out all facets of living."
"To snatch time and write songs, in joy and stubbornness, is a revolt."
"A few weeks back a newspaper carried a portrait of a young worker who took out an hour everyday to write poetry. The worker was quoted as saying that in his poetry he is trying to investigate and understand the import of the word 'equality'."
"This is revolt."
"Whenever it seems that production has come to a sudden halt, it is usually, actually, a swell of the hum between us -- of 1200 to 1500 people. There are words, there is a rhythm, and a feeling runs through us, but it is inaudible. Not heard. But you sway to it. It can only be lived."
"Have been to many places
Have drunk water in many places
It has been hard on my belly
But have learned to be carefree
With strangers."
"Time shortens
at times
Maybe we have to make new time
Friends, together
we take a holiday
to bring the horizon close."
"Let me tell you a story about drawing in the horizon. I've been running into this one good fellow repeatedly over the last five days at the teashop. The first day he was full of invectives, exclamations, and deep sighs about life! The next day, he and his 120 co-workers had stopped work, and he said with a wry smile, 'Life sucks'. Then on the third day, workers in two more factories of the same company stopped work."
"And then? Now what did he say then?"
"We met. He said, 'It's a hot day. Let me treat you to a good cup of tea.' And then, sipping his tea, he said, 'Do you sense our heft now?'"
"Three days, big fluctuations. Whenever we meet others, it's amidst intersecting arcs of the fluctuations of many."
"Poetry and song strike at the intervals between these intersections. They are stitches in the ascending and descending notes of these fluctuations."
"How is your good fellow amidst so many with such ease?"
"Tell me. I've been out of work for three months. I'm inside poetry now. I have time to listen. Don't hesitate. Tell me all your tales and hows."
"Tales, hows, and poetry. Three words with a lot of heft. The fluctuations, collisions, and entwined solos of these three runs through us, and it transforms the scent of the milieu."
"Far from where I was born,
and with whom I grew up
Making new
relations and friends
My arms open."
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 347
May 2017
Page 1: Tales, Hows, and Poetry
Page 2: Conversations in and with thousands in transient groups
Page 3: Commoning; Not to become Targets; 1st of May
Page 4: Many Thoughts, in conversation with Many
PDF enclosed.
Contributions welcome
We currently print 16,000 copies at the monthly print cost of Rs. 14,000/-. We are able to meet this through contributions. To sustain us, you can send a bank transfer. Please write to us, and we will send you the bank details.
Distribution is over one month from 25 places in Faridabad, Okhla, Gurgaon, NOIDA and Manesar. Through this, we enter into thousands of conversations. Please write to us if you would like to join us; we will let you know of the place and time.
FMS_May_2017 by baatein1 on Scribd
Sunday, April 9, 2017
fms April 2017
“Sunshine Uncle, you seem very tired today.”
“Heat, brother, it’s the summer heat. And, also, got a big download of laments!”
“Okay then, get our wages increased.”
“What!? Strength is yours, and you’re asking me?”
“If we speak, it rises to insurrection.”
“And when did you start fearing that?”
“Aaah ha. What did you surmise? We fear? Fear is travelling across. It has even reached journalists. They speak in fear.”
“You speak in riddles.”
“If I speak, you will shiver!”
“Come on, winters are over!”
“True. As I was saying to my friends here, we do all the actions, and in reaction we hear lots and lots of speeches. The deluge of words quickly slides into how weak, how helpless we are. And so I say, when we speak, it brings shivers, because when we speak we, once again, do not look helpless.”
“Sunshine Uncle, let me tell you something that happened yesterday. One of our friends went to the HR manager to get an explication of his salary slip. Working with his cruel intelligence Mr. HR took our friend to the contractor to get him terminated. It was tea time. Our friend phoned us. Word spread. Work stopped. All went to HR. He got rattled. The next shift was made aware. This will go on for some days.”
“These collisions are ever-time.”
“Ha ha overtime vs. ever-time?”
“True. An incremental circling of a coming storm, an unpredictable, unbounded, shifting force. We hear these days that research says small micro-events are connected and bring about massive shifts that engulf all.”
“For sure. Engulf it will. The question then is, how to face this with radiance and confidence.”
“Your words are elegant. But I’m afraid I don’t get them fully.”
“Okay Sunshine Uncle, let me try. A few days back a robot hit a worker on his head. Not only did he end up with a one inch deep gash, he also lost his job. This factory has about 100 robots. We tire out. We need rest. We ask question of values. We argue over explanations. They keep working.”
“So you’re saying we come with hassles and robot with none. Is that what managements like?”
“We too are attracted to them, but this allure has not found a description between us. At the moment it is clouded with fear and doubt. I think that, in our time, robots may displace the work-dependent meaning we give to life.”
“Yes, it is being said that we are in an interval of a rapid disappearance of work. And what you are saying is that in this interval it is of immense significance what radiant thoughts, actions, and questions will emerge.”
“Over the last many years this radiance emerges and shines, then hibernates in subterranean flows.”
“Those who get scared of this radiance deny it ever happened.”
“Sunshine Uncle, do you get it? When we’re called helpless, it comes from fear. A fear of radiance.”
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 346
April 2017
Page 1: “A Fear of Radiance”
Page 2: Conversations In, And With, Many Transient Groups
Page 3: Commoning
Page 4: The Hollowness of Punishment; Fear Strikes Manesar
Contributions welcome
We currently print 16,000 copies at the monthly print cost of Rs. 14,000/-. We are able to meet this through contributions. To sustain us, you can send a bank transfer. Please write to us, and we will send you the bank details.
Distribution is over one month from 25 places in Faridabad, Okhla, Gurgaon, NOIDA and Manesar. Through this, we enter into thousands of conversations. Please write to us if you would like to join us; we will let you know of the place and time.
“Heat, brother, it’s the summer heat. And, also, got a big download of laments!”
“Okay then, get our wages increased.”
“What!? Strength is yours, and you’re asking me?”
“If we speak, it rises to insurrection.”
“And when did you start fearing that?”
“Aaah ha. What did you surmise? We fear? Fear is travelling across. It has even reached journalists. They speak in fear.”
“You speak in riddles.”
“If I speak, you will shiver!”
“Come on, winters are over!”
“True. As I was saying to my friends here, we do all the actions, and in reaction we hear lots and lots of speeches. The deluge of words quickly slides into how weak, how helpless we are. And so I say, when we speak, it brings shivers, because when we speak we, once again, do not look helpless.”
“Sunshine Uncle, let me tell you something that happened yesterday. One of our friends went to the HR manager to get an explication of his salary slip. Working with his cruel intelligence Mr. HR took our friend to the contractor to get him terminated. It was tea time. Our friend phoned us. Word spread. Work stopped. All went to HR. He got rattled. The next shift was made aware. This will go on for some days.”
“These collisions are ever-time.”
“Ha ha overtime vs. ever-time?”
“True. An incremental circling of a coming storm, an unpredictable, unbounded, shifting force. We hear these days that research says small micro-events are connected and bring about massive shifts that engulf all.”
“For sure. Engulf it will. The question then is, how to face this with radiance and confidence.”
“Your words are elegant. But I’m afraid I don’t get them fully.”
“Okay Sunshine Uncle, let me try. A few days back a robot hit a worker on his head. Not only did he end up with a one inch deep gash, he also lost his job. This factory has about 100 robots. We tire out. We need rest. We ask question of values. We argue over explanations. They keep working.”
“So you’re saying we come with hassles and robot with none. Is that what managements like?”
“We too are attracted to them, but this allure has not found a description between us. At the moment it is clouded with fear and doubt. I think that, in our time, robots may displace the work-dependent meaning we give to life.”
“Yes, it is being said that we are in an interval of a rapid disappearance of work. And what you are saying is that in this interval it is of immense significance what radiant thoughts, actions, and questions will emerge.”
“Over the last many years this radiance emerges and shines, then hibernates in subterranean flows.”
“Those who get scared of this radiance deny it ever happened.”
“Sunshine Uncle, do you get it? When we’re called helpless, it comes from fear. A fear of radiance.”
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 346
April 2017
Page 1: “A Fear of Radiance”
Page 2: Conversations In, And With, Many Transient Groups
Page 3: Commoning
Page 4: The Hollowness of Punishment; Fear Strikes Manesar
Contributions welcome
We currently print 16,000 copies at the monthly print cost of Rs. 14,000/-. We are able to meet this through contributions. To sustain us, you can send a bank transfer. Please write to us, and we will send you the bank details.
Distribution is over one month from 25 places in Faridabad, Okhla, Gurgaon, NOIDA and Manesar. Through this, we enter into thousands of conversations. Please write to us if you would like to join us; we will let you know of the place and time.
FMS_April2017 by baatein1 on Scribd
fms March 2017
“Of late, the management de-activates sensor to increase production.”
“That’s a horrible attitude.”
“Sensors reduced the injuring and chopping off of hands in power presses. Machines would stop. But sensors are removed to jack up production, and once more there is an increase in injuries.”
“Such cruel intelligence is widespread. It’s a blow to life.”
“True. Tears and laments are perhaps an expression of encounters with cruel intelligence, but delay an understanding of the operation of this cruel intelligence.”
“Listening to you all I feel that we encounter this specific form of intelligence everyday, but personify it in our conversations, quickly forgetting what we started to think on, encircling ourselves with summary denunciations of this or that personality.”
“What do you mean, ‘personified forms’?”
“Nothing complex. Statements like, this manager is bad, that supervisor is mean, that general manager is crude — and one can keep adding adjectives and positions.”
“These laments are common. A counterforce to life-force.”
“I feel that every instance of cruel intelligence stuns us. It cuts into the equality that we live by — equality of life, of intelligence, of compassion, of joy, and of the capacity to create.”
“From what you are saying, or what I can make of it, it seems that the laments of daily life are a visible layer of the rumbling subterranean.”
“True. Often, the proximity of a lament makes us become lost in it.”
“Below the surface is the collision of intelligence.”
“We sense this collision. Whenever we are in conversation with each other, we advise each other on how to disable this cruel intelligence.”
“How?”
“Whenever — by ourselves or with another — we go into despair of cruel intelligence, we get exhausted battling with its personified form. But when in groups of 5 or 6, or 7 or 8, however and wherever they may get formed, our discussions cast personified forms aside, and we start thinking, sharing, advising on how to restrain, de-activate, in-operationalise this form of intelligence.”
“Now that you put it this way, I see this conversation is active, it is all around.”
“But sister, how do we remember these conversations? Agreed, these conversations, these collisions of intelligence, are all around, and there is a churning, but they are also momentary, transient, and multiple, and they fade rapidly.”
“Hmm, so you are now asking me for methods to remember? What I have come to understand is that it is best not to entangle ourselves in methods of remembering. It is when the frequency, intensity, duration, and presence of these conversations multiply and thicken, that they transmit and travel.”
“And then just as they travel from here to there, they will travel back from there to here too. The joy of this travel and momentum sheds the weight of cruel intelligence.”
“And we revel in our childhood enigma of where our body ends and the world begins.”
“Fantastic.”
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 345
March 2017
Page 1: From Here to There, From There to Here.
Page 2: Father-Daughter Conversation; Commoning.
Page 3: Excerpts of Conversations in Transient Groups on the Roadside, in Okhla, Gurgaon, Manesar.
Page 4: Excerpts of Conversations in Transient Groups on the Roadside, in Udyog Vihar.
Contributions welcome
We currently print 16,000 copies at the monthly print cost of Rs. 14,000/-. We are able to meet this through contributions. To sustain us, you can send a bank transfer. Please write to us, and we will send you the bank details.
Distribution is over one month from 25 places in Faridabad, Okhla, Gurgaon, NOIDA and Manesar. Through this, we enter into thousands of conversations. Please write to us if you would like to join us; we will let you know of the place and time.
“That’s a horrible attitude.”
“Sensors reduced the injuring and chopping off of hands in power presses. Machines would stop. But sensors are removed to jack up production, and once more there is an increase in injuries.”
“Such cruel intelligence is widespread. It’s a blow to life.”
“True. Tears and laments are perhaps an expression of encounters with cruel intelligence, but delay an understanding of the operation of this cruel intelligence.”
“Listening to you all I feel that we encounter this specific form of intelligence everyday, but personify it in our conversations, quickly forgetting what we started to think on, encircling ourselves with summary denunciations of this or that personality.”
“What do you mean, ‘personified forms’?”
“Nothing complex. Statements like, this manager is bad, that supervisor is mean, that general manager is crude — and one can keep adding adjectives and positions.”
“These laments are common. A counterforce to life-force.”
“I feel that every instance of cruel intelligence stuns us. It cuts into the equality that we live by — equality of life, of intelligence, of compassion, of joy, and of the capacity to create.”
“From what you are saying, or what I can make of it, it seems that the laments of daily life are a visible layer of the rumbling subterranean.”
“True. Often, the proximity of a lament makes us become lost in it.”
“Below the surface is the collision of intelligence.”
“We sense this collision. Whenever we are in conversation with each other, we advise each other on how to disable this cruel intelligence.”
“How?”
“Whenever — by ourselves or with another — we go into despair of cruel intelligence, we get exhausted battling with its personified form. But when in groups of 5 or 6, or 7 or 8, however and wherever they may get formed, our discussions cast personified forms aside, and we start thinking, sharing, advising on how to restrain, de-activate, in-operationalise this form of intelligence.”
“Now that you put it this way, I see this conversation is active, it is all around.”
“But sister, how do we remember these conversations? Agreed, these conversations, these collisions of intelligence, are all around, and there is a churning, but they are also momentary, transient, and multiple, and they fade rapidly.”
“Hmm, so you are now asking me for methods to remember? What I have come to understand is that it is best not to entangle ourselves in methods of remembering. It is when the frequency, intensity, duration, and presence of these conversations multiply and thicken, that they transmit and travel.”
“And then just as they travel from here to there, they will travel back from there to here too. The joy of this travel and momentum sheds the weight of cruel intelligence.”
“And we revel in our childhood enigma of where our body ends and the world begins.”
“Fantastic.”
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 345
March 2017
Page 1: From Here to There, From There to Here.
Page 2: Father-Daughter Conversation; Commoning.
Page 3: Excerpts of Conversations in Transient Groups on the Roadside, in Okhla, Gurgaon, Manesar.
Page 4: Excerpts of Conversations in Transient Groups on the Roadside, in Udyog Vihar.
Contributions welcome
We currently print 16,000 copies at the monthly print cost of Rs. 14,000/-. We are able to meet this through contributions. To sustain us, you can send a bank transfer. Please write to us, and we will send you the bank details.
Distribution is over one month from 25 places in Faridabad, Okhla, Gurgaon, NOIDA and Manesar. Through this, we enter into thousands of conversations. Please write to us if you would like to join us; we will let you know of the place and time.
FMS_Mar2017 by baatein1 on Scribd
fms February 2017
“Fantastic. From audacity to audacity, we lift each other. Spread.”
“It’s time for a festival of audacity. A reader reminded me about an aphorism of Tathagata. A disciple asked Tathagata, ‘Which is the most auspicious day for festivities?’ Tathagata replied with his renowned gentleness, ‘A day before your death.’ Bewildered, the disciple asked, ‘How do we know the day of our death? It has no date, no certainty.’ Tathagata smiled, ‘So, then celebrate and be festive each day.’
“Fantastic. If festivity is our starting line, many assumptions will crumble.”
“Which assumptions?”
“Fantastic! Like job-job-job gives meaning to life. Like, get pulped and ground today to enjoy the breeze from a skyscraper later.”
“The sense life as festivities rolls about in my head. I’m amazed by the variations and differences I see all around.”
“Amazing. Have you seen the beaks of birds? The nectar feeding are different from the fruit eating, which are different from surface skimming, which are different from scything, and those from different from chiseling, which are different from dip netting, which are different from probing, which are different from filter feeding.”
“True. Amazing. My uncle and his friends say that when they went with their inner factory conflicts to other factory workers by standing in street corners for hours, daily, for months, with placards, they sensed an intense diversity and variation in people around them.”
“Fantastic, my friend! But a question. How come we lose this sense of a million variations, and, worse still, become fearful of them?”
“No, it’s even worse! We lock it away. Sometimes words give us a frame, and we get locked inside it. Like us ‘tenants’ in Kapashera. So many of us are tenants. And yet, the word doesn’t bring any closeness between us.”
“Fantastic! But inside the factory, we are in a remarkable closeness. Then again, between factories this closeness weakens. This is my biggest bafflement.”
“My uncle tells me that our generation keeps moving between factories, so we will find a way. He says his generation failed to address this question adequately. But now we need to address it in our own way.”
“Fantastic.”
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 344
February 2017
Page 1: Daily Festivities Are the Way
Page 2: Crookedness & Crookedness; Weakening Companies
Page 3: It Does happen, with Togetherness; Commoning; A Letter
Page 4: Everyone Speaks - Through a Thousand Forms of Speech.
Contributions welcome
We currently print 16,000 copies at the monthly print cost of Rs. 14,000/-. We are able to meet this through contributions. To sustain us, you can send a bank transfer. Please write to us, and we will send you the bank details.
Distribution is over one month from 25 places in Faridabad, Okhla, Gurgaon, NOIDA and Manesar. Through this, we enter into thousands of conversations. Please write to us if you would like to join us; we will let you know of the place and time.
“It’s time for a festival of audacity. A reader reminded me about an aphorism of Tathagata. A disciple asked Tathagata, ‘Which is the most auspicious day for festivities?’ Tathagata replied with his renowned gentleness, ‘A day before your death.’ Bewildered, the disciple asked, ‘How do we know the day of our death? It has no date, no certainty.’ Tathagata smiled, ‘So, then celebrate and be festive each day.’
“Fantastic. If festivity is our starting line, many assumptions will crumble.”
“Which assumptions?”
“Fantastic! Like job-job-job gives meaning to life. Like, get pulped and ground today to enjoy the breeze from a skyscraper later.”
“The sense life as festivities rolls about in my head. I’m amazed by the variations and differences I see all around.”
“Amazing. Have you seen the beaks of birds? The nectar feeding are different from the fruit eating, which are different from surface skimming, which are different from scything, and those from different from chiseling, which are different from dip netting, which are different from probing, which are different from filter feeding.”
“True. Amazing. My uncle and his friends say that when they went with their inner factory conflicts to other factory workers by standing in street corners for hours, daily, for months, with placards, they sensed an intense diversity and variation in people around them.”
“Fantastic, my friend! But a question. How come we lose this sense of a million variations, and, worse still, become fearful of them?”
“No, it’s even worse! We lock it away. Sometimes words give us a frame, and we get locked inside it. Like us ‘tenants’ in Kapashera. So many of us are tenants. And yet, the word doesn’t bring any closeness between us.”
“Fantastic! But inside the factory, we are in a remarkable closeness. Then again, between factories this closeness weakens. This is my biggest bafflement.”
“My uncle tells me that our generation keeps moving between factories, so we will find a way. He says his generation failed to address this question adequately. But now we need to address it in our own way.”
“Fantastic.”
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 344
February 2017
Page 1: Daily Festivities Are the Way
Page 2: Crookedness & Crookedness; Weakening Companies
Page 3: It Does happen, with Togetherness; Commoning; A Letter
Page 4: Everyone Speaks - Through a Thousand Forms of Speech.
Contributions welcome
We currently print 16,000 copies at the monthly print cost of Rs. 14,000/-. We are able to meet this through contributions. To sustain us, you can send a bank transfer. Please write to us, and we will send you the bank details.
Distribution is over one month from 25 places in Faridabad, Okhla, Gurgaon, NOIDA and Manesar. Through this, we enter into thousands of conversations. Please write to us if you would like to join us; we will let you know of the place and time.
FMS_Feb2017 by baatein1 on Scribd
Autonomy in India: Tactical and Strategic Considerations on the New Wave of Workers’ Struggles
https://www.viewpointmag.com/2017/01/23/autonomy-in-india-tactical-and-strategic-considerations-on-the-new-wave-of-workers-struggles/
Sunday, January 29, 2017
January fms 2017
"We are 300. What can you do for us? We plan to come and meet you. But first, tell, what help can you bring to the workers?"
"Why would an active gathering of 300 ask anyone, 'what you can do for us?' Is there something you find lacking in this assembly?"
"Lack? Where did 'lack' come from? We keep the management tense all through the day. It's a battle between them trying exhaustion on us, and us pushing tension on them."
"What an amazing image of workplace you've drawn. A battle between exhaustion and tension. It cannot come from lack for sure. Then what is that's making you search for help?"
"Well, then you can say we're asking for help to enhance the collective happiness of this gathering of 300, and through them of many, many others connected to them."
"You create some rather abrupt detours! Happiness can be mobilised to think about many deferred ways of living and thinking. It can bring into questioning the persistence of keeping the present hostage to future happiness. But, again, this can't be a reason for asking for help."
"Reasons? We can list a few. Fear. Being dismissed. Being attacked by bouncers inside workspaces. Threatened by police in accelerated situations. We feel that some relief can come from people who claim to help workers. People who can bring in some pressure on the administration."
"And then? A spiral of dates and assurances? Dispersal and exhaustion? Is there anything else that comes to mind when these 'helping hands' take over?"
"No, not much else. No, haven't heard of much else resulting. But maybe with us it will be different. We 300 are different. We're a courageous lot."
"Why take your courage and transfer it into someone else's strength? Maybe there are other ways to take the spunk of 300 to many; from 300 to 3000, to 5000, to 15000?"
"We do understand that it is through lot of mutual sharing between us that we became 300. We have an image of each other, and of 300. We know that many others are connected to this gathering. But the image blurs. It's difficult to conjure an image of the felt - but not so visible - connect. Maybe, you can help here!"
"This seems pretty far from the language of help, helpers, and their procedures. This is about how to transmit audacity. A question that we all keep battling with."
"There is beauty in this relay, this transmission of courage."
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 343
January 2017
Page 1: Audacious Ones, Begin the Transmission of Your Daring
Page 2: It Is Ordinary; Twisted Logic; Increasingly Insecure Companies; Weakening Companies
Page 3: Steps in Common; Commoning
Page 4: Worker Activities in Bangladesh; Question & Answers
PDF enclosed.
Contributions welcome
We currently print 16,000 copies at the monthly print cost of Rs. 14,000/-. We are able to meet this through contributions. To sustain us, you can send a bank transfer. Please write to us, and we will send you the bank details.
Distribution is over one month from 25 places in Faridabad, Okhla, Gurgaon, NOIDA and Manesar. Through this, we enter into thousands of conversations. Please write to us if you would like to join us; we will let you know of the place and time.
"Why would an active gathering of 300 ask anyone, 'what you can do for us?' Is there something you find lacking in this assembly?"
"Lack? Where did 'lack' come from? We keep the management tense all through the day. It's a battle between them trying exhaustion on us, and us pushing tension on them."
"What an amazing image of workplace you've drawn. A battle between exhaustion and tension. It cannot come from lack for sure. Then what is that's making you search for help?"
"Well, then you can say we're asking for help to enhance the collective happiness of this gathering of 300, and through them of many, many others connected to them."
"You create some rather abrupt detours! Happiness can be mobilised to think about many deferred ways of living and thinking. It can bring into questioning the persistence of keeping the present hostage to future happiness. But, again, this can't be a reason for asking for help."
"Reasons? We can list a few. Fear. Being dismissed. Being attacked by bouncers inside workspaces. Threatened by police in accelerated situations. We feel that some relief can come from people who claim to help workers. People who can bring in some pressure on the administration."
"And then? A spiral of dates and assurances? Dispersal and exhaustion? Is there anything else that comes to mind when these 'helping hands' take over?"
"No, not much else. No, haven't heard of much else resulting. But maybe with us it will be different. We 300 are different. We're a courageous lot."
"Why take your courage and transfer it into someone else's strength? Maybe there are other ways to take the spunk of 300 to many; from 300 to 3000, to 5000, to 15000?"
"We do understand that it is through lot of mutual sharing between us that we became 300. We have an image of each other, and of 300. We know that many others are connected to this gathering. But the image blurs. It's difficult to conjure an image of the felt - but not so visible - connect. Maybe, you can help here!"
"This seems pretty far from the language of help, helpers, and their procedures. This is about how to transmit audacity. A question that we all keep battling with."
"There is beauty in this relay, this transmission of courage."
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 343
January 2017
Page 1: Audacious Ones, Begin the Transmission of Your Daring
Page 2: It Is Ordinary; Twisted Logic; Increasingly Insecure Companies; Weakening Companies
Page 3: Steps in Common; Commoning
Page 4: Worker Activities in Bangladesh; Question & Answers
PDF enclosed.
Contributions welcome
We currently print 16,000 copies at the monthly print cost of Rs. 14,000/-. We are able to meet this through contributions. To sustain us, you can send a bank transfer. Please write to us, and we will send you the bank details.
Distribution is over one month from 25 places in Faridabad, Okhla, Gurgaon, NOIDA and Manesar. Through this, we enter into thousands of conversations. Please write to us if you would like to join us; we will let you know of the place and time.
January 2017 Fms by baatein1 on Scribd
December 2016 fms
“These must be good days for you, given your obsessions with mystery novels?”
“Why not! These are days of mystery; everyone is a protagonist and a reader rolled into one.”
“The question is: What kind of protagonist? And also, what mystery are they playing into?”
“In this mystery, non-human protagonists play at par with the human, collide with the human, and blur the line in between.”
“Who are these protagonists?”
“Electronics, digital, bank, cash, ATM, password, cards.”
“Hmm. So these have displaced the vintage ones: Food, Clothing, Shelter.”
“Hah! Those overflow. Everyday we walk on roads, past row upon row of shoes, of clothes, of eateries, of empty buildings. These protagonists have fallen weak; they have been sidelined by the new ones.”
“Everyone seems to speak of figures like 15 lakh crore, as if they can see them. Amazing.”
“This is what I draw into my mystery novel. A sense of a new spread. A sense of connectivity, scale, and speed that everyone seems to talk and think with. A new affect has taken over. I wonder, why not think this outside money, without money.”
“Whoa, what a sudden out of joint spin! As if you are possessed by that ever-curious questioner: the eternal, the undead, Betaal.
“Ha ha. Yes I guess I am. Betaal stands in disjoint to time and to our daily acceptances, and queries us to examine values, ourselves, and life. Today, in our immersion, it is best to recall that spirit.”
“Let me message my friends and ask them to play ‘becoming Betaal’, and send me questions, out of beat, out of turn, out of time, like Betaal has been posing them.”
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 342
December 2016
Page 1: Betaal Asks: Why Not Reject Money?
Page 2: Of Irrelevance of law; When certainty is uncertainty, then why fear.
Page 3: Twisted logic to twisted logic; Increasingly insecure companies; Commoning
Page 4: Report from Mayapuri Industrial Area, Delhi; The Shimmer of Self-Activity
PDF enclosed.
Contributions welcome
We currently print 16,000 copies at the monthly print cost of Rs. 14,000/-. We are able to meet this through contributions. To sustain us, you can send a bank transfer. Please write to us, and we will send you the bank details.
Distribution is over one month from 25 places in Faridabad, Okhla, Gurgaon, NOIDA and Manesar. Through this, we enter into thousands of conversations. Please write to us if you would like to join us; we will let you know of the place and time.
“Why not! These are days of mystery; everyone is a protagonist and a reader rolled into one.”
“The question is: What kind of protagonist? And also, what mystery are they playing into?”
“In this mystery, non-human protagonists play at par with the human, collide with the human, and blur the line in between.”
“Who are these protagonists?”
“Electronics, digital, bank, cash, ATM, password, cards.”
“Hmm. So these have displaced the vintage ones: Food, Clothing, Shelter.”
“Hah! Those overflow. Everyday we walk on roads, past row upon row of shoes, of clothes, of eateries, of empty buildings. These protagonists have fallen weak; they have been sidelined by the new ones.”
“Everyone seems to speak of figures like 15 lakh crore, as if they can see them. Amazing.”
“This is what I draw into my mystery novel. A sense of a new spread. A sense of connectivity, scale, and speed that everyone seems to talk and think with. A new affect has taken over. I wonder, why not think this outside money, without money.”
“Whoa, what a sudden out of joint spin! As if you are possessed by that ever-curious questioner: the eternal, the undead, Betaal.
“Ha ha. Yes I guess I am. Betaal stands in disjoint to time and to our daily acceptances, and queries us to examine values, ourselves, and life. Today, in our immersion, it is best to recall that spirit.”
“Let me message my friends and ask them to play ‘becoming Betaal’, and send me questions, out of beat, out of turn, out of time, like Betaal has been posing them.”
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 342
December 2016
Page 1: Betaal Asks: Why Not Reject Money?
Page 2: Of Irrelevance of law; When certainty is uncertainty, then why fear.
Page 3: Twisted logic to twisted logic; Increasingly insecure companies; Commoning
Page 4: Report from Mayapuri Industrial Area, Delhi; The Shimmer of Self-Activity
PDF enclosed.
Contributions welcome
We currently print 16,000 copies at the monthly print cost of Rs. 14,000/-. We are able to meet this through contributions. To sustain us, you can send a bank transfer. Please write to us, and we will send you the bank details.
Distribution is over one month from 25 places in Faridabad, Okhla, Gurgaon, NOIDA and Manesar. Through this, we enter into thousands of conversations. Please write to us if you would like to join us; we will let you know of the place and time.
December 2016 Fms by baatein1 on Scribd
November 2016 fms
“How are you?”
“I am now a runaway.”
“From what?”
“From work.”
“Runaway?”
“I have rejected time.”
“Rejected?”
“Like when products get rejected. Shirts. Pants. Mobile phones.”
“So?”
“I reject time. It is also a product that needs to be rejected.”
“But why runaway?”
“Because runaways can sing for everyone.”
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 341
November 2016
Page 1: “I Hereby Reject Time”
Page 2: To Argue, To Get; Factory Reports; Weakened Companies
Page 3: Games Middlemen Play; Insecure Companies; Commoning
Page 4: In Step with Self-Activity.
PDF enclosed.
Contributions welcome
We currently print 16,000 copies at the monthly print cost of Rs. 14,000/-. We are able to meet this through contributions. To sustain us, you can send a bank transfer. Please write to us, and we will send you the bank details.
Distribution is over one month from 25 places in Faridabad, Okhla, Gurgaon, NOIDA and Manesar. Through this, we enter into thousands of conversations. Please write to us if you would like to join us; we will let you know of the place and time.
“I am now a runaway.”
“From what?”
“From work.”
“Runaway?”
“I have rejected time.”
“Rejected?”
“Like when products get rejected. Shirts. Pants. Mobile phones.”
“So?”
“I reject time. It is also a product that needs to be rejected.”
“But why runaway?”
“Because runaways can sing for everyone.”
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 341
November 2016
Page 1: “I Hereby Reject Time”
Page 2: To Argue, To Get; Factory Reports; Weakened Companies
Page 3: Games Middlemen Play; Insecure Companies; Commoning
Page 4: In Step with Self-Activity.
PDF enclosed.
Contributions welcome
We currently print 16,000 copies at the monthly print cost of Rs. 14,000/-. We are able to meet this through contributions. To sustain us, you can send a bank transfer. Please write to us, and we will send you the bank details.
Distribution is over one month from 25 places in Faridabad, Okhla, Gurgaon, NOIDA and Manesar. Through this, we enter into thousands of conversations. Please write to us if you would like to join us; we will let you know of the place and time.
FMS_Nov2016 by baatein1 on Scribd
October 2016 fms
"Listen, friend, let's summarise."
"Summarise what?"
"An unfolding that is transforming the actual and virtual landscapes of work and life."
"Eager. Carry on then."
"An 18 to 20 year old enters a workplace -- as a temporary or as an apprentice. Explores and creates many relationships. These start from departments, move to shifts, extend between shifts, stretch in travel, enlarge across neighbourhoods, and proliferate in phone groups. These happens over days, occasions, months, a year or two years and more, between thousands. Bonds thicken.
They deepen. Gather speed.
Conversations, repartee with supervisors, frictions over production targets, arguments about disciplinary codes, defiance of rules, discontent over canteen food, and many more moments. Seepage spreads and cracks deepen at the work site."
"This is the general milieu. As always.
What's so significant now?"
"The loss of control over workplace is palpably felt by management. This is the general milieu. Everybody knows, this is how the managerial occupation of production is forced to loosen its grip.
Sudden stoppage of work, refusal to do overtime, sporadic lengthening of lunch or tea breaks, increase of product rejections, becoming mute in oral confrontations. This moves like a wave, resonating and engulfing."
"And then?"
"And / or / with…
A decision to not leave the factory.
Attack on factory buildings.
Company eases tensions through concessions.
Police and bouncers attack workers.
Mass dismissals."
"And / or / with?"
"The wave swings to other factories. Like recently, when women workers in Bangalore went from 4000 to 100,000 within hours, and took over the city. The concessions achieved were a gain to millions of workers."
"Or?"
"Shrink to 40. A process of dissipation and exhaustion through procedures of petitioning, and a wait for the benevolence of administration to intervene."
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 340
October 2016
Page 1: A Diagram of Self-Activity, Actual and Virtual
Page 2: Legal Cracks Grow; Corruption & Co.; Dates-Dates-Dates
Page 3: Security Workers, Insecure Conditions, and Other Reports
Page 4: Bonus: How to Hack It
PDF enclosed.
Contributions welcome
We currently print 16,000 copies at the monthly print cost of Rs. 14,000/-. We are able to meet this through contributions. To sustain us, you can send a bank transfer. Please write to us, and we will send you the bank details.
Distribution is over one month from 25 places in Faridabad, Okhla, Gurgaon, NOIDA and Manesar. Through this, we enter into thousands of conversations. Please write to us if you would like to join us; we will let you know of the place and time.
"Summarise what?"
"An unfolding that is transforming the actual and virtual landscapes of work and life."
"Eager. Carry on then."
"An 18 to 20 year old enters a workplace -- as a temporary or as an apprentice. Explores and creates many relationships. These start from departments, move to shifts, extend between shifts, stretch in travel, enlarge across neighbourhoods, and proliferate in phone groups. These happens over days, occasions, months, a year or two years and more, between thousands. Bonds thicken.
They deepen. Gather speed.
Conversations, repartee with supervisors, frictions over production targets, arguments about disciplinary codes, defiance of rules, discontent over canteen food, and many more moments. Seepage spreads and cracks deepen at the work site."
"This is the general milieu. As always.
What's so significant now?"
"The loss of control over workplace is palpably felt by management. This is the general milieu. Everybody knows, this is how the managerial occupation of production is forced to loosen its grip.
Sudden stoppage of work, refusal to do overtime, sporadic lengthening of lunch or tea breaks, increase of product rejections, becoming mute in oral confrontations. This moves like a wave, resonating and engulfing."
"And then?"
"And / or / with…
A decision to not leave the factory.
Attack on factory buildings.
Company eases tensions through concessions.
Police and bouncers attack workers.
Mass dismissals."
"And / or / with?"
"The wave swings to other factories. Like recently, when women workers in Bangalore went from 4000 to 100,000 within hours, and took over the city. The concessions achieved were a gain to millions of workers."
"Or?"
"Shrink to 40. A process of dissipation and exhaustion through procedures of petitioning, and a wait for the benevolence of administration to intervene."
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 340
October 2016
Page 1: A Diagram of Self-Activity, Actual and Virtual
Page 2: Legal Cracks Grow; Corruption & Co.; Dates-Dates-Dates
Page 3: Security Workers, Insecure Conditions, and Other Reports
Page 4: Bonus: How to Hack It
PDF enclosed.
Contributions welcome
We currently print 16,000 copies at the monthly print cost of Rs. 14,000/-. We are able to meet this through contributions. To sustain us, you can send a bank transfer. Please write to us, and we will send you the bank details.
Distribution is over one month from 25 places in Faridabad, Okhla, Gurgaon, NOIDA and Manesar. Through this, we enter into thousands of conversations. Please write to us if you would like to join us; we will let you know of the place and time.
October Fms 2016 by baatein1 on Scribd
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)