ataxiwardance

India Factory Workers Revolt, Kill Company President

Forbes, 1/27/2012 @ 3:08PM

Workers at the Regency Ceramics factory in India raided the home of their boss, and beat him senseless with led pipes after a wage dispute turned ugly.

The workers were enraged enough to kill Regency’s president K. C. Chandrashekhar after their union leader, M. Murali Mohan, was killed by baton-wielding riot police on Thursday. The labor violence occurred in Yanam, a small city in Andra Pradesh state on India’s east coast. Police were called to the factory by management to quell a labor dispute. The workers had been calling for higher pay and reinstatement of previously laid off workers since October. Murali was fired a few hours after the police left the factory.

The next morning, at 06:00 on Friday, Murali went to the factory along with some workers and tried to obstruct the morning shift, local media reported. Long batons, known as lathis in India, were used by police who charged the workers, injuring at least 20 of them, including Murali. He died on the way to hospital, according to The Times of India. Hundreds of workers gathered outside the police station and demanded that officers be charged with homicide.

Curfew and other civil orders were imposed in Yanam because of the uprising that ultimately led to the murder of the Regency president. Police reported that rioters also torched several vehicles outside the police station. Eight Regency Ceramics workers were injured in police firing that followed; the condition of two of them is critical. More than 100 protesters have been arrested.

India factory workers are the lowest paid within the big four emerging markets. Per capita income in India is under $4,000 a year, making it the poorest country in the BRICs despite its relatively booming economy.

Did you know that some estimates put the number of Indian Naxalite-Maoist Communists as over 1,000,000. They are currently heavily concentrated in the impoverished Red Corrider and have, until recently, largely been a jungle / non-urban movement.

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See also: “rent-seeking behavior” or “rentier capitalism” for similar examples.

Whenever I wake up and the first thing I see on my Tumblr is a blog post about  ”rentier capitalism” or “rentier state”, I KNOW IT’S GOING TO BE A GOOD DAY.

I feel invigorated! Time to slam a whole pot of coffee and get on my three page to-do list. Thank you Marxist theory!

Going to the Thomas Weisskopf Conference on Marxist Economics in Amherst w/ Blake.

Hopefully it will be as picturesque as this shitty stock photo. 

love it.