Team Herald

CANACONA: With labour laws tilted in favour of labourers there is no one to question the rates that are demanded by migrant labourers in Goa; the new rates have been unilaterally increased from Rs 600 and 800 for unskilled and skilled labourer by rupees 100 each in Canacona. 

Local residents employing these migrants, who number in thousands, are complaining amongst themselves that the authorities have failed to check the increasing rates even though their output has decreased over the last few years. 

It is a common site early morning in each and every town of Goa wherein these migrants come together to be picked up by the local residents to do mostly civil house construction work.

There are some migrants who are in Goa for quite some time now, act as leaders and dictate when it comes to fixing rates and other issues pertaining to the workforce.  The work which they do is to be done in a time limit. With no option left, locals are forced to accept whatever rates quoted by them.

A local while complaining about the issue said that not only the rates have gone up astronomically but the working hours have been reduced. 

"Earlier workers used to work for 8 hours, now they don't even work for 7 hours that too with so many breaks either to drink water, to go to the washroom or to chew tobacco products,” said social activist Diogo Da Silva. 

Da Silva, speaking about the issue, said that there should be a control of the authorities over the migrant labourers be it their wages or hours of work. 

"I hope the government will act tough and fix a proper minimum and maximum wage and work hours so that Goans don't get cheated in the process," reminded Da Silva.