India as a nation till today is predominantly an agrarian society where majority of the people are dependent on agriculture production for their livelihood. However, with the growing pressure of the population and economic disparity, and the resultcant division of land and reducing per capita share, more and more people are moving towards cities with tlie hope of employment and survival. Such migratory labour has illore than 50% populatioil of women who also have to look for employmeilt due to tlie prevailing economic coinpulsion and social evils and custorns. Due to illiteracy ,and lack of skills they are unable to find employment elsewhere except the construction sites where normally there is dearth of labour to do manual work. Women by virtue of their inhenred qualities of tolerance, patience, perseverance and lack of awareness ideally fit into such employment opportunities in the construction industry. The employer also prefer woineli employees because they are less demanding and give better output vis-a-vis the male workers.
Traditional Role of Women in Construction and its Historic Perspective
In Indian society, working woman is entrusted with the responsibility of the work not only at the place of work but also in her fanuly as a housewife. In spite of working for minimum eight hours at the constructio~l site, she has to look after all house hold work like cooking for the family, washing of utensils and clothes and cleaning of house, etc. apart from rearing the children. Although the trend is gradually changing in cities among tlne women employees specially tor those who are into white collar jobs but for women ill blue collar jobs or in construction industry there is hardly any noticeable change. Due to disparity in the standards of upbringing of a male and female child, she is subjected to discrimination by her own parents right from the very beginning of her childhood. The process of exploitation continues even after her marriage in the family of her in-laws. Tht Indian woman has reconciled to this aspect of life as a natural process and takes it in her stride alongwith other struggles and problems of her life.Although lot of reasons are responsible and attributable for this current social status of women but predominantly she herself is responsible for t11is sorry state of affairs. Another very important aspect for this historic perspective is that it is womail who is causing more damage and harm to the another woman for her continuance in the present misery and sufferings. In spite of various social projects initiated under various goverilment schemes both by Central as well as State governments and tlne supporting role played by various in the non-government voluntary organisations, there llas been hartlly much iinproven~e~it plight of woman specially in the construction industry. Lack of education. infrastructural support and lack of political will on the part of government and other supporting orgImisations ,are also contributory factors towards this problem.
Factors Affecting Performance of Women Employee Psychological Factors
Woman in Indian society has been treated as second class citizen. In spite of being most productive and performing not only her household functions but also working in most difficult and low paid jobs she is not given a warm and tleceint treatment by her own family members, live alone the trealment meted out to her by outsiders.The quality of her personal life as well as the quality of her work life particularly in construction industry forces her to make constant compromise at lnome and at work. These psychological adjust~nients affect her values, attitudinal B motivational profile and lner morale at work. Most of the time slie suffers from a high degree of sense of insecurity being at the receiving end. The job is not able to even fulfill her basic needs relating to food, shelter & clothing and safety and security need. Therefore, the questioin of illspiring for satisfaction of higher order needs does not arise.
Social Factors
The social and political empowerment of woman is not possible without economic empowerment. The very tact that nmst of the wonlen in our country rue i'lnancially dependent on their spouse for economic support, put their spouse in aclvantageous position. The social status of working women who are in white collar or technical jobs is substantially different from those of non-working woinen as they have better recognition in soclety and financial independence. Although this should take away the suffering of working women but surprisingly there IS no substruntial difference between the social status of non-working women and working women in construction industry. The women in construction industry even in spite of their financial independence have to depend heavily on their spouse ;tnd other family members because of psycho-sociological factors. Lack of awareness and education on their part is one of the major reason for contributi:lg to this sorry state of affair.Her plight is worse Ulan non-working women because inspile ot putting in minimum 8 hours of physical hard work. she has to discharge all lner family responsibilities at home including cooking, cleaning of utensils. washing of clothes, etc.today in spite of nlore than 50 years of independence of the country, the Indian women do not have any independe~~t status of her own as she merely follows the dictate or instructions of her spouse. I11 many states, they are not even allowed to cast their vote in spite of the facr that government has given full political independence to Unem. Although government has franlecl various social welfare schemes for upliftment and independence of working women including hotel for working women, women finance corporation, etc. but not much could be achieved so f'u because of prevailing social factors. Non-government organisations and trade unions functioning should take the lead in this regard to alleviate the suffering of working women in construction industry.
Most of the women working in construction industry qoine from extremely poor families. Due to economic compulsion of their family $ey had to look for avenues for their employment to supplement the family income. Due to lack of education and lack of any technical skills, they are unable to get employment in other industry except construction. Since construction industry require large manpower to do physical manual work, such women get the employment without much problem. Even after getting the job they are constantly under economic pressure and are not able to come out of the vicious circle of poverty. For fulfillment of their basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter, they are always under pressure due to scarcity of economic resources. In many companies, they are exploited by contractors who often do not pay them even minimum wages, forccs them to work for longer hours without any overtime or extra payment. There are instances of contractor showing payment of higher wages to them and paying thein much less than that or making the payment of amount shown in muster roll in presence of representative of principal employer and taking back part of the payment from them outside the site. For procuring employment also they have to bribe thc middleman.
In spite of detailed provisions under the Building xid Other Construction Workers (Regulation of E~ilployment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1096, the Building and (Ither Construction Workers Welfare Cess Act, 1996 and the Building andOther Construction Workers Welfare Cess Rules, 1998, most c~f the en~ployers do not provide various economic benefits admissible to the constructic>n workers including women. There is rampant corruption, lack of awareness, relevant information, non-cooperative behaviour of the spouse and the family .are the root causes for economic suffering of women in construction industry.
Technological Factors
With the ongoing process of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation of Indian economy, all industries including construction are gradually adopting the latest technology in their operation in order to retain their competitive edge. C)ne of the essei~tial requirements for making use of latest technology, is continuous upgradation of knowledge, skills, performance, capacity and capability building of its existing human resource. Unfortunately, training and development of inanpower especially in construction industry in general and women in particular is the most neglected area. It is the human being who has created the technology and it is hewho will operate the technology and not vice-versa. In order to make the maximum use of the existing technology, plant and machinery and the existing human skills,most of the construction industries are not quite willing to adopt the latest technology in their operations. The availability of cheap manpower including women with low skills in abundance, the employer in construction industry often find it convenient to continue with the existing infrastructure rather than investing in new technology at the cost of taking risk.
Due to lack of awareness, education and predominant pre-occupation with their family problems, Indian working women give their job secoi~d priority and do not concentrate on their demand for upgradation of their skills along with changing technology. Surprisingly, such issues also do not find high priority in the list of demands raised by the employee associations and trade unions in construction industry with their mariagement.
Status of Women at Place of Work
Indian society historically has always been male dominated. The role of women traditionally has been confined to domestic work or working in the fields. As a nation,India is gradually emerging as an industrially developing country being in transformatioll from an agrari'm to industrial society. Therefore, working of women in industry is relatively recent phenomcnoll being hardly 2-3 decades old.Obviously, in'such a society like ours, the recognition to working woman is and going to be a slow and difficult process wherein she has to undergo lot of inconvenience, humiliation and harassment to establish her independent status in the industrial world.
Discrimination
Discrimination of women on the grounds of sex has been perennial problem in our society from time, immemorial. It continues in the families, villages, panchayat, etc. and even in the cities and at the place of work although to somewhat lesser degree in comparison to villages. At the place of work often women is considered for promotion or discharge of higher responsibility on grounds of gender bias as she is not considered competent enough to discharge the higher responsibility. It has been proved beyond doubts that given an opportunity woman can be equally competent and efficient in discharging the duties of any function as efficiently as man folk based on the opportunities given to them in different industries and services like defence, airline, hotels, engineering and software companies, etc. In construction industries also this trend of gradually imparting higher responsibility to woman is on the rise although relatively with lesser pace. It is not only at the level of manual, semi-skilled, skilled, supervisory but also at the managerial level.The number of women students is increasing significantly in engineering colleges, architect colleges and interior decoration courses as a result of which the percentage of women employee in construction industry have also increased to a .sizeable extent. With the growth and development of the society and consequent increase in awareness and education level, the discrimination against women will gradually disappear.
Harassment
As an extension of discriminatory practices followed in many organisations, working women are often harassed at the place of work. Specially, in small cities and towns where the awareness level among the citizen is poor and the law enforcing agencies often restrict themselves to take care of the interest of only few.The politically and economically well off employers and managers due to the socio-economic and political environment encourage harassment of women at the place of work. Although to certain extent the probleni continues in large and metropolitan cities but due to better education and awareness and close public scrutiny of various organs of government by media restricts the problem to a great extent. Nevertheless the problem continues in one form or other. The gravity ofthe problem is so serious that Supreme Court through one of its judgement in case of Vishaka vs. State of Rajasthan, AIR 1997, SC 3011 has made use of its extraordinary power under Article 32 of the Constitution and inade it a law by exercising its power under Article 141 to ensure that there is no liarassment to the women at the place of work. It has asked central as well as state governments to frame appropriate law on the subject. Till such time, its directions as per the said judgement should be implemented rigorously to provide adeyuate protection and to avoid harassment to working women. According to the above judgement of the Supreme Court, sexual harassment includes such unwelcome sCxually determined behaviour whether directly or by implication as physical contact and advances, a demand or request for sexual favour, sexually covered remarks, showing pornography or any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of sexual nature.
Exploitation
Harassment is used as tactics on the part of male folks at the place of work to sexually exploit the women. By making various kind of verbal coinments or physical advances, pressure is created on women to concede to the desire of the male sooner or later. As and when any victim of sexual harassment has a reasonable apprehension that in relation to her job or work in a voluntaryorganisation, public or private sector undertaking whether she is drawing salary or honorarium or otherwise that such conduct can be humiliating 'and may constitute a health and safety problem, she may lodge her complain to the employer. She has the choice to complain to the employer or to request him to initiate disciplinary action against the culprit or she may file a FIR with police for initiating criminal proceeding against him. The employers whether in government, public or private sector, have been instructed to express prohibition of sexual harassment at the work place by notifying, publishing and circulating in appropriate manner. They should include in their rules, regulation or standing orders, 'sexual harassment' as a major misconduct. Employer should provide appropriate working conditions in respect of work, leisure, health and hygiene to further ensure that there is no hostility towards women at work place and no woman employee should have reasonable grounds to believe that she is disadvantaged in connection with heremployment. The Supreme Court has provided multiple relief to working women against their sexual harassment and exploitation. It includes a complaint conunittee, freedom to trade unions to raise issues of sexual harassment in their own meetings as well as meetings with employers, creation of awareness among female employees by notification of its guidelines, relief in case of harassment by third party and direction to central and state governments to make law preventing sexual llarassment and exploitation at the place of work. Relief through these guidelines are in addition to any right available to a woman under the provisions of Protection ot Human Right Act, 1993.
Traditional Role of Women in Construction and its Historic Perspective
In Indian society, working woman is entrusted with the responsibility of the work not only at the place of work but also in her fanuly as a housewife. In spite of working for minimum eight hours at the constructio~l site, she has to look after all house hold work like cooking for the family, washing of utensils and clothes and cleaning of house, etc. apart from rearing the children. Although the trend is gradually changing in cities among tlne women employees specially tor those who are into white collar jobs but for women ill blue collar jobs or in construction industry there is hardly any noticeable change. Due to disparity in the standards of upbringing of a male and female child, she is subjected to discrimination by her own parents right from the very beginning of her childhood. The process of exploitation continues even after her marriage in the family of her in-laws. Tht Indian woman has reconciled to this aspect of life as a natural process and takes it in her stride alongwith other struggles and problems of her life.Although lot of reasons are responsible and attributable for this current social status of women but predominantly she herself is responsible for t11is sorry state of affairs. Another very important aspect for this historic perspective is that it is womail who is causing more damage and harm to the another woman for her continuance in the present misery and sufferings. In spite of various social projects initiated under various goverilment schemes both by Central as well as State governments and tlne supporting role played by various in the non-government voluntary organisations, there llas been hartlly much iinproven~e~it plight of woman specially in the construction industry. Lack of education. infrastructural support and lack of political will on the part of government and other supporting orgImisations ,are also contributory factors towards this problem.
Factors Affecting Performance of Women Employee Psychological Factors
Woman in Indian society has been treated as second class citizen. In spite of being most productive and performing not only her household functions but also working in most difficult and low paid jobs she is not given a warm and tleceint treatment by her own family members, live alone the trealment meted out to her by outsiders.The quality of her personal life as well as the quality of her work life particularly in construction industry forces her to make constant compromise at lnome and at work. These psychological adjust~nients affect her values, attitudinal B motivational profile and lner morale at work. Most of the time slie suffers from a high degree of sense of insecurity being at the receiving end. The job is not able to even fulfill her basic needs relating to food, shelter & clothing and safety and security need. Therefore, the questioin of illspiring for satisfaction of higher order needs does not arise.
Social Factors
The social and political empowerment of woman is not possible without economic empowerment. The very tact that nmst of the wonlen in our country rue i'lnancially dependent on their spouse for economic support, put their spouse in aclvantageous position. The social status of working women who are in white collar or technical jobs is substantially different from those of non-working woinen as they have better recognition in soclety and financial independence. Although this should take away the suffering of working women but surprisingly there IS no substruntial difference between the social status of non-working women and working women in construction industry. The women in construction industry even in spite of their financial independence have to depend heavily on their spouse ;tnd other family members because of psycho-sociological factors. Lack of awareness and education on their part is one of the major reason for contributi:lg to this sorry state of affair.Her plight is worse Ulan non-working women because inspile ot putting in minimum 8 hours of physical hard work. she has to discharge all lner family responsibilities at home including cooking, cleaning of utensils. washing of clothes, etc.today in spite of nlore than 50 years of independence of the country, the Indian women do not have any independe~~t status of her own as she merely follows the dictate or instructions of her spouse. I11 many states, they are not even allowed to cast their vote in spite of the facr that government has given full political independence to Unem. Although government has franlecl various social welfare schemes for upliftment and independence of working women including hotel for working women, women finance corporation, etc. but not much could be achieved so f'u because of prevailing social factors. Non-government organisations and trade unions functioning should take the lead in this regard to alleviate the suffering of working women in construction industry.
Most of the women working in construction industry qoine from extremely poor families. Due to economic compulsion of their family $ey had to look for avenues for their employment to supplement the family income. Due to lack of education and lack of any technical skills, they are unable to get employment in other industry except construction. Since construction industry require large manpower to do physical manual work, such women get the employment without much problem. Even after getting the job they are constantly under economic pressure and are not able to come out of the vicious circle of poverty. For fulfillment of their basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter, they are always under pressure due to scarcity of economic resources. In many companies, they are exploited by contractors who often do not pay them even minimum wages, forccs them to work for longer hours without any overtime or extra payment. There are instances of contractor showing payment of higher wages to them and paying thein much less than that or making the payment of amount shown in muster roll in presence of representative of principal employer and taking back part of the payment from them outside the site. For procuring employment also they have to bribe thc middleman.
In spite of detailed provisions under the Building xid Other Construction Workers (Regulation of E~ilployment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1096, the Building and (Ither Construction Workers Welfare Cess Act, 1996 and the Building andOther Construction Workers Welfare Cess Rules, 1998, most c~f the en~ployers do not provide various economic benefits admissible to the constructic>n workers including women. There is rampant corruption, lack of awareness, relevant information, non-cooperative behaviour of the spouse and the family .are the root causes for economic suffering of women in construction industry.
Technological Factors
With the ongoing process of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation of Indian economy, all industries including construction are gradually adopting the latest technology in their operation in order to retain their competitive edge. C)ne of the essei~tial requirements for making use of latest technology, is continuous upgradation of knowledge, skills, performance, capacity and capability building of its existing human resource. Unfortunately, training and development of inanpower especially in construction industry in general and women in particular is the most neglected area. It is the human being who has created the technology and it is hewho will operate the technology and not vice-versa. In order to make the maximum use of the existing technology, plant and machinery and the existing human skills,most of the construction industries are not quite willing to adopt the latest technology in their operations. The availability of cheap manpower including women with low skills in abundance, the employer in construction industry often find it convenient to continue with the existing infrastructure rather than investing in new technology at the cost of taking risk.
Due to lack of awareness, education and predominant pre-occupation with their family problems, Indian working women give their job secoi~d priority and do not concentrate on their demand for upgradation of their skills along with changing technology. Surprisingly, such issues also do not find high priority in the list of demands raised by the employee associations and trade unions in construction industry with their mariagement.
Status of Women at Place of Work
Indian society historically has always been male dominated. The role of women traditionally has been confined to domestic work or working in the fields. As a nation,India is gradually emerging as an industrially developing country being in transformatioll from an agrari'm to industrial society. Therefore, working of women in industry is relatively recent phenomcnoll being hardly 2-3 decades old.Obviously, in'such a society like ours, the recognition to working woman is and going to be a slow and difficult process wherein she has to undergo lot of inconvenience, humiliation and harassment to establish her independent status in the industrial world.
Discrimination
Discrimination of women on the grounds of sex has been perennial problem in our society from time, immemorial. It continues in the families, villages, panchayat, etc. and even in the cities and at the place of work although to somewhat lesser degree in comparison to villages. At the place of work often women is considered for promotion or discharge of higher responsibility on grounds of gender bias as she is not considered competent enough to discharge the higher responsibility. It has been proved beyond doubts that given an opportunity woman can be equally competent and efficient in discharging the duties of any function as efficiently as man folk based on the opportunities given to them in different industries and services like defence, airline, hotels, engineering and software companies, etc. In construction industries also this trend of gradually imparting higher responsibility to woman is on the rise although relatively with lesser pace. It is not only at the level of manual, semi-skilled, skilled, supervisory but also at the managerial level.The number of women students is increasing significantly in engineering colleges, architect colleges and interior decoration courses as a result of which the percentage of women employee in construction industry have also increased to a .sizeable extent. With the growth and development of the society and consequent increase in awareness and education level, the discrimination against women will gradually disappear.
Harassment
As an extension of discriminatory practices followed in many organisations, working women are often harassed at the place of work. Specially, in small cities and towns where the awareness level among the citizen is poor and the law enforcing agencies often restrict themselves to take care of the interest of only few.The politically and economically well off employers and managers due to the socio-economic and political environment encourage harassment of women at the place of work. Although to certain extent the probleni continues in large and metropolitan cities but due to better education and awareness and close public scrutiny of various organs of government by media restricts the problem to a great extent. Nevertheless the problem continues in one form or other. The gravity ofthe problem is so serious that Supreme Court through one of its judgement in case of Vishaka vs. State of Rajasthan, AIR 1997, SC 3011 has made use of its extraordinary power under Article 32 of the Constitution and inade it a law by exercising its power under Article 141 to ensure that there is no liarassment to the women at the place of work. It has asked central as well as state governments to frame appropriate law on the subject. Till such time, its directions as per the said judgement should be implemented rigorously to provide adeyuate protection and to avoid harassment to working women. According to the above judgement of the Supreme Court, sexual harassment includes such unwelcome sCxually determined behaviour whether directly or by implication as physical contact and advances, a demand or request for sexual favour, sexually covered remarks, showing pornography or any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of sexual nature.
Exploitation
Harassment is used as tactics on the part of male folks at the place of work to sexually exploit the women. By making various kind of verbal coinments or physical advances, pressure is created on women to concede to the desire of the male sooner or later. As and when any victim of sexual harassment has a reasonable apprehension that in relation to her job or work in a voluntaryorganisation, public or private sector undertaking whether she is drawing salary or honorarium or otherwise that such conduct can be humiliating 'and may constitute a health and safety problem, she may lodge her complain to the employer. She has the choice to complain to the employer or to request him to initiate disciplinary action against the culprit or she may file a FIR with police for initiating criminal proceeding against him. The employers whether in government, public or private sector, have been instructed to express prohibition of sexual harassment at the work place by notifying, publishing and circulating in appropriate manner. They should include in their rules, regulation or standing orders, 'sexual harassment' as a major misconduct. Employer should provide appropriate working conditions in respect of work, leisure, health and hygiene to further ensure that there is no hostility towards women at work place and no woman employee should have reasonable grounds to believe that she is disadvantaged in connection with heremployment. The Supreme Court has provided multiple relief to working women against their sexual harassment and exploitation. It includes a complaint conunittee, freedom to trade unions to raise issues of sexual harassment in their own meetings as well as meetings with employers, creation of awareness among female employees by notification of its guidelines, relief in case of harassment by third party and direction to central and state governments to make law preventing sexual llarassment and exploitation at the place of work. Relief through these guidelines are in addition to any right available to a woman under the provisions of Protection ot Human Right Act, 1993.
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