Women of the night, woe unto you! The Haryana labour commissioner has asked BPOs in Gurgaon not to allow or ask women to work in their establishments in night shifts. The mall city, which is home to dozens of BPOs and brings a lot of offshoring business to India, is expected to lose its lustre if the diktat is followed in toto. The babus are not to blame - they are just implementing a law which was framed before the dawn of outsourcing and lost its relevance once India started shining. The law, ironically, was framed to prevent women from exploitation.

The labour diktat provoked some thoughts about women working in night shifts. Should they or should they not? Who are men to set rules on what time their better halves should and should not work? Why have double standards in the age of cubicles and steel-glass malls?

Part of the answer may lie with companies aspiring to be equal opportunity employers, but cannot since they do not want to handle the trouble. This writer knew of an office where late night shifts were the norm. There were no whole-night shifts, but employees were required to do the late shifts in rotation. Work in late night shifts used to get over only by 12.30 or so, and the company was not proactive on providing late night transport for the women employees. This used to pose a problem for the executives in charge, since they couldn't force the women to stay back in the absence of company transport, but always risked antagonising the male employees who, by consequence, had to slog through the night shifts by rotation.

The executives in charge at the company experimented with different methods to find a solution. One suggestion was to put the girls only in the early shifts. The shifts used to start around noon, and end by around sundown. This ensured that those women staffers could finish work and go home by nightfall.

However, this often ran into problems with their male colleagues. Earning the same salary, (and sometimes even less) the men in these departments had to do the grunt job by rotation, while the PYTs would wave goodbyes, throw flying kisses and wade out by evening.

At department conclaves, the women would protest that it is not their fault, but they did not have company transport, and so cannot be expected to stay back late. The upshot was that younger (and much junior) boys who joined work were bundled into night shifts, whereas more senior and talented women staffers were let off early, triggering frustration at the workplace and less-than-optimum usage of human resources.

The shift executives later found that getting the company to arrange proper transport for their staffers was the equivalent of collectively banging their heads against the office notice board. In the meantime, several qualified and bright women left the company, frustrated at the inability to put their skills to use.

The executives later hit upon the unique idea of not recruiting women. The company's policy did not discriminate between men and women, but at the job interview itself, the aspirants would be told of the workplace situation, to discourage them if they could not arrange for their own transport. This worked well for some time, and over the years, eliminated most of the women from the departments.

In another office in Delhi, the women, like men, were required to do night shifts, with proper company transport and stuff. One day, a woman was waylaid by hoodlums or her way home - and the company forthwith stopped the practice of women in night shifts. The prospect of getting women to work on night shifts and getting embroiled in assault cases was not something the company wanted to touch with a 12-feet pole. Without any unsolicited help from the labour commissioner, women were exempted from night duty.

However, my observation is that many BPOs do provide proper transport and canteen facilities to their employees, whether men or women. A large number of them dispatch vehicles to pick up their staffers and drop them back home, besides providing facilities like canteen, gym, nursery etc. However, the same is not the case with all employers.

Many offices have taken note of these problems. In some offices where there are round-the-clock shifts, staffers are allocated duty in such a way that those women who work the late-night shifts had to work from 9 PM to 5 AM. The idea was that instead of driving women home in the dead of night, it would be safer if they remained in office. Many women agreed with this formula, since it did not involve the hassle of traveling home at night. However, the formula did not click with many girls whose parents did not want their girl children to work at night and many women whose husbands did not find it agreeable.

As recently as March 2005, the Union government decided to amend the Factories Act of 1948, to allow women to work in night shifts. The move to amend the Act was made on the basis of the increasing role of women in society and industry, as well as several court verdicts. The government felt that the amendment would benefit women working in SEZs and the IT industry.

However, announcing this, Information and Broadcasting minister Jaipal Reddy had said that such work timings for women would be allowed “provided adequate safeguards in the factory as regards occupational safety and health, equal opportunity for women workers, adequate protection of their dignity, honour and safety and their transportation from the factory premises to the nearest point of their residence” are made.

The minister got it right. Many employers still pay lip service to equal opportunity, but when it means incurring additional expenses, the Shylocks in sheep skin shy away. Many companies which insist on night shifts do not have canteens, transport, proper rest rooms and sleeping quarters. Do not get me wrong - I am not talking about the BPOs in Gurgaon which shudder at the labour commissioner's gavel, but many of their thrifty cousins across the country. When night shifts are a function of the job, it is part of the employer's job profile to make it easy on the employees. So elementary, isn't it? But still so sadly lost on many Shylocks.

BY JM

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