In Public Interest: Chennai’s sanitation workers demand answers

The Greater Chennai Corporation’s decision to hand over solid waste management in Royapuram (Zone 5) and Thiru Vi Ka Nagar (Zone 6) to private contractors sparked protest from workers employed under the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM).

These workers — many of them long serving, predominantly women from marginalized communities — argue that privatisation will slash their wages, weaken job security and deepen inequality, especially as the city has already outsourced most other zones to private firms in previous years.

In this week's In Public Interest, Shabbir Ahmed unpacks why the Chennai sanitation workers’ protest has become one of the longest and most sustained labour movements in recent civic history, and what this means for a city that depends on these workers every single day.