Legal Empowerment
Making the Law Work for Everyone
Making the Law Work for Everyone
Legal empowerment is a fundamental component of Disha's mission to build knowledge, skills, and confidence of migrant workers by specifically working towards building equality and empowerment of migrant workers
This platform initiated jointly by Labour Department, The National Legal Services Authority of India (NLSAI) and Disha Foundation and is specifically arranged for handling grievances of Migrants on employment, wages or related grievances. It is a First kind of initiative to address issues of unorganized sector migrant workers. Two Grievances handling board has been set up at two labour markets of Nasik.
A complaint form has been developed through which any worker can raise his/her problems. These complaints can be dropped in the complaint box, which is available on two labour markets. Labour department twice in a month address these complaints and also pay an immediate attention in case of emergency cases. In case labour is illiterate, Disha’s social workers facilitate the process on his/her behalf.
Disha has formed local Naka committee comprising local naka worker, who are actively handling day-to-day cases on their own, only major cases are referred to Labour department. But to the experience of Disha, the presence of Labour department and NLSAI has put some check on the wages exploitation and number of such cases has come down. Trade union is playing crucial role in effective functioning of 'Migrant Labour Grievance cell'.
The cell has also extended at some source villages. The Gram Panchayats at source level are actively engaged with the Cell. They have made contractors accountable for paying minimum wages and avoid wages exploitation and harassment at workplace. Few Panchayats have banned few contractors in their villages who had wages exploitation cases against them.