Sanitation workers in Chennai faced a major police crackdown just two days ago, but today they are back in large numbers with their indomitable collective resolve to resist outsourcing of their services to a private company by the DMK-led state government.

Groundxero | Aug 15, 2025

As the country celebrated 79th anniversary of its freedom from the British imperialist rule, hundreds of sanitation workers, overwhelmingly from the Schedule Castes (SC), who are being oppressed, exploited and facing social discrimination for centuries, are sitting in protest outside the headquarters of the Chennai GCC, demanding a reversal of the civic body’s decision to privatise solid waste management in two more zones in the city.

The protest by the sanitary workers started on August 1, 2025, when the sanitation workers in Chennai’s Zones 5 and 6 in Royapuram and Thiru Vi Ka Nagar, reported for duty as usual, but were sent home, as the civic body had outsourced their jobs to a private contractor, Ramky Enviro Engineers.

The sanitation workers are employed under the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) on contractual basis. The workers, most of them women, have over a decade of service as contract workers with the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) and have for long been demanding permanent employment with basic labour rights.

The workers fear losing jobs after privatization of services by the civic body and say that their wages will also drop when jobs are privatized. For the past 15 days, these workers have been camping outside the city municipal headquarters and demanding the government to roll back its anti-worker decision.

For over a decade, these sanitation workers have served under the state government’s NULM as informal labourers. They clean sewers and public toilets and handle animal carcasses. Most began on a meagre salary of Rs 6,000 a month, and after years of protest and slow hikes, the pay was raised to Rs 22,590, only since the last year. But they get no special benefits despite the hazardous nature of their work, no paid sick leaves, no public holidays or compensation for injury while on duty. They have no medical insurance, old age pension or other basic entitlements.

Injuries to sanitary workers while on duty are common. Manual scavenging though banned and the practice of forcing sanitary workers into hazardous work without providing safety gears has been criminalised by the Supreme court, safety gear, gloves, masks, boots is almost never provided to them. Tamil Nadu continues to top the list of manhole deaths in India.

Since, an overwhelming majority of these sanitary workers are from Scheduled caste communities, caste becomes another point of oppression for these workers. Further in most zones women are the major parts of the workforce, who single handedly, run their families. As they are on contract, they cannot raise their voices fearing they’ll lose jobs.

The state government cited a lack of funds as justification for privatization. Ironically, the government also claims that after privatization of services, these workers will finally get the benefits they have been denied for years! The workers, on other hand, claim that even their current salary of Rs 23000 will be reduced to Rs 15000 a month under the private contractor. After deductions for PF and ESI, they will at best, get Rs 12-13 thousands in hand, which will not cover even the basic living costs.

Also, there is a clear pattern in the zones where services have been already privatised (AIADMK’s government had privatised solid waste management services in 10 of the GCC’s 15 zones in 2021), with the private companies rarely retaining the long-serving NULM sanitation workers. Instead, they were retrenched and replaced by new-comers.

So, the workers will not only get lower pay but also fear losing their jobs, once the civic services are handed over to a private company. Instead of conservancy operations being outsourced to private contractors, they are demanding regularization of their jobs, salary security, and the withdrawal of the privatisation move.

The workers protests are backed by several trade unions, including the All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), Left Trade Union Congress (LTUC), Labour Progressive Union (LPU), and Uzhaipor Urimai Iyakkam (Workers’ Right Movement).

On Wednesday, the 14th Day of the protest, in a midnight crackdown, the police forcefully evicted the protesting sanitation workers from the GCC Ripon building entrance on Wednesday. The police crackdown followed a Madras High Court order directing that the protest be shifted to a designated site as it is causing inconvenience to the public owing to traffic jams. The police, acting on court’s order, scooped down on the workers at midnight, as is the usual practice. Hundreds of workers were forcibly dragged out and put into buses. Some women workers fainted during the police action, while some sustained injuries while being dragged away. Over 800 workers were detained. They were released the next day.

The police action triggered strong reactions from opposition leaders and worker unions, who attacked the CM Stalin for breaking his 2021 election promise to regularise the sanitary workers and instead is now privatising their services.

Faced with political outcry, on August 14, the Tamil Nadu cabinet approved a welfare package for sanitation workers, promising free breakfast, higher life insurance cover, expanded health schemes, scholarships for their children, and 30,000 new housing units over the next three years.

The workers, however, say the new measures do not address their core demand on privatisation in the two zones. They have vowed to continue their protest and resist privatisation until the move is reversed.

We end this report by quoting a protesting sanitary worker, who told Maktoob media:

“You needed us when you wanted your filth cleared. Today, you threw us away like garbage. We have spent our entire lives cleaning this city. We will not allow ourselves to be handed over to a private company. We are not bones for dogs; we are the backbone of this city.”