5/15/2023 0 Comments Cruise ship graveyard“When there are problems, we deal with the workers directly. Nor do they engage in collective bargaining at company or sectoral level. Although the other yard owners we speak to aren’t as disparaging, no-one has anything resembling a formal relation with a union. “And that makes doing business in Gujarat so nice we have no unions because everyone is on the same page.” Gupta makes this surprising – and patently untrue – statement at the end of an interview during which he has tried to explain the economic laws of demand and supply that govern the world of globalised shipping and shipbreaking, or as industry captains like him prefer to call it: “recycling”. “There is no union in Alang,” affirms Nikhil Gupta, co-owner of Rudra Green Ship Recycling, one of the “better” shipbreaking yards in Alang. The numbers given vary with each interview, and official statistics are not available, since most labour is informal anyway. These infrastructures are completely insufficient to meet the needs of almost 160 yards in Alang, on which 15,000 to 30,000 workers dismantle huge ships under extreme conditions, risking their lives. There is a small, 10-bed clinic run by the Indian Red Cross and the Alang Hospital, which has 20 beds, but these do not have the equipment to deal with serious injuries. It takes more than an hour to cover that distance on the narrow two-lane road, full of speed bumps, stray cows, trucks and dangerous traffic. When Bhuabhai had the accident at Honey Ship Breaking Yard, he was brought to the public hospital in Bhavnagar, a provincial town more than 50 kilometers from Alang. The latter can make the difference between life and death when disaster strikes. Health and accident insurance for everyone.Adequate hospital capacity.”
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