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Over 200 million workers in Indian industries are informally engaged. They are not entitled to social security and PDS—hence, no ration, public housing, and public healthcare. However, it took a pandemic to bring mainstream attention to this demographic. When the first lockdown was announced in March 2020, many of them were left stranded without work, money, and shelter. Men, women, and children were forced to walk thousands of miles to their villages and hometowns, to escape the starvation and uncertainty offered by their cities of work. It is from this moment of distress that arose an opportunity for change, and thus Social Compact was born.
Social Compact is a multistakeholder movement that brings together corporates, worker organizations, and experts into a co-solutioning relationship to ensure greater equity and dignity for industry-employed informal workers in India. Social Compact advocates the idea of resetting business aspirations to build back better, with the ideology that ‘responsible business is successful business’. The movement offers a human-centric framework, homegrown with the experience of worker organizations - Aajeevika Bureau and Centre for Social Justice along with Dasra - to help industries reflect on the maturity of their worker practices. The journey from reflection to remedial action is all co-created by industry and worker organizations, to ensure meaningful and sustainable inclusion of worker wellbeing in industrial systems. The Social Compact is a growing community of practice with 300+ diverse participants and over 40 principal and supply chain companies on the journey towards ensuring business sustainability, and more inclusive worker practices, triggering systemic impact for over 50,000 vulnerable workers in India. |
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