The death of Anna Sebastian Perayil has brought into focus the question of the relationship between labour, capital and human beings. It was not the death itself but the refusal of Anita Sebastian, mother of Anna to accept it as a normal death and her decision to write a strong letter to the head of the CA firm Ernst & Young holding the work culture of the firm which made it a public issue and forced the government and the political class to take cognisance of it.
Anita Sebastian held Ernst & Young responsible for the death of her young daughter Anna. It burdened Anna with an impossible workload which ultimately crushed her.
She said “Anna would never have blamed her managers. She was too kind for that. But I cannot remain silent. Burdening newcomers with such backbreaking work, making them work day and night, even on Sundays, has no justification whatsoever… You should show some consideration to new employees. Instead, the management took full advantage of the fact that she was new and overwhelmed her with both assigned and unassigned work,”
What Anna’s mother wrote next was written by Karl Marx some 175 years ago. Anita writes, “Anna’s experience sheds light on a work culture that seems to glorify overwork while neglecting the very human beings behind the roles.”
Her daughter is gone but Anita knows that it is not about her alone: “This is not just about my daughter, it’s about every young professional who joins EY filled with hopes and dreams, only to be crushed under the weight of unrealistic expectations… Anna’s death should serve as a wake-up call for EY. It is time to reflect on the work culture within your organisation and take meaningful steps to prioritise the health and wellness of your employees,”
Anita speaks like a labour rights activist when she demands that an environment should be created where employees feel safe to speak up, get support to manage their workload and “where their mental and physical well-being is not sacrificed for the sake of productivity”.
Anita is questioning the sacred principle of productivity which is a beautiful substitute for the familiar PROFIT at the alter of which everything and anything can be sacrificed.
Anita talks about her daughter: that her daughter was full of life and dreams. She, the mother cries: “I don’t know if anyone can truly understand a mother’s emotions when she lays to rest her child – the child she held in her arms, watched grow, play, cry, and shared dreams with – unless they have experienced the same pain.”
But she is writing the letter precisely because she does not want others to experience the same pain: “I hope my child’s experience leads to real change so that no other family has to endure the grief and trauma we are going through. My Anna is no longer with us, but her story can still make a difference.”
Anita also resented the fact that her daughter’s company did not express any condolences after Anna’s death and no-one attended her burial.
It was slightly surprising to see the letter creating a ripple in the political circles which is more or less united by the consensus that it is productivity which matters most and the interests of the capital are supreme. Anita Sebastian’s letter has moved governments and politicians. It would be seen as natural for the Kerala government to have taken note of the letter.
What is pleasantly unexpected is the fact that the union government’s Labour Department, National Commission for Women and National Human Rights Commission have also questioned the company. The company has predictably denied that its work culture was responsible for Anna’s death.
According to the chief of the firm, the company is very humane and takes care of the mental and physical health of the employees.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s statement in keeping with her temperament and the politics of her party the BJP failed to be moved by the tragedy. She did not even have the civility to mourn the death of the young worker.
The death of Anna gave her an opportunity to ask the educational institutions and families to teach the young to manage stress. She feels that spirituality can help. Not once, unlike leaders like Shashi Tharoor and Rahul Gandhi and the left leaders, did she feel the need to talk about the overwork that the mother of Anna held responsible for killing her daughter.
Sitharaman was criticised by others who saw her indirectly blaming Anna for her own death as she could not manage the stress caused by the workload. Why didn’t she prepare herself to endure it? Why did she allow herself to be broken by this stress?
Even if you leave this ruthless indifference of Sitharaman, we know that if Anna’s mother had not written this letter, then Anna’s death and her life would have remained anonymous just like the lives of crores of workers. They are like pebbles which just sink in the well of capitalism without any noise.
Capitalist labour creates the illusion of giving life, but it actually takes the life of the worker. It was Karl Marx who wrote more than 175 years ago that the labour of the worker stands as an enemy against the worker.
It feeds on her, grows larger than her and then smothers her. It dehumanises when it does not kill. After Anita’s letter, many people on social media have written openly about the inhumane labour culture of their respective companies. A woman wrote how the company treated her cruelly even when she was pregnant.
She was fired, his computer was immediately taken and all her stuff on it was quickly deleted. It was the company’s treatment of the employee who had given years of her life to make the company profit from it and increase his capital. Many other people have also shared their similar experiences.
Every company can say that the employee’s work is properly compensated. But as Marx has written and the capitalists have not yet been able to deny it, capital grabs a large part of the real value of the worker’s labour and thus becomes fat. But it cripples the labour.
To say that capital is human is a joke in itself. She wants to absorb every drop of your time and makes every effort. Initially it seems tempting that if you come to the office in the morning, you’ll get breakfast and coffee, but the price is nothing compared to the time that the office is taking from you. You happily surrender that time to it and thus yourself.
Anna had just entered the world of capital and labour. She threw herself into it. It is clear from Anna’s mother Anita’s letter that it was not a pleasant labour. Can labour be enjoyable? This question has been considered for a long time.
It is not just that Marx believed that unless the worker has a role in determining the goal of labour, it remains alien to him. The result of labour becomes the enemy of the worker and stands confronting her.
Ghisu and Madhav, the two famous characters of KAFAN , created by Premchand are not the only ones who ask this question, what becomes of me with my hard work? If it does not get rewarded properly it becomes the property of others , why do it? They are derided as shirkers .Those who are lazy.
The narrator of the story refuses to participate in the glorification of labour: “In a society where the condition of those who toil day and night was not much better than their condition, and in contrast to the peasants, those who knew how to take advantage of the weaknesses of the peasants were far more prosperous, it was no wonder that such an attitude arose there. We will say, Ghisu was much more intelligent than the peasants and instead of joining the thoughtless group of peasants, he joined the infamous circle of idlers.”
After Anna’s death, the issue of working hours is being discussed again. 12 to 14 hours of work a day is now becoming a norm. In the era of labour modernisation, mobile phones and email keep you under the watchful eye of your boss 24 hours a day. There is a price to pay for not picking up the phone, not looking at your WhatsApp.
Some 200 years ago, workers, by agitating or rebelling against the rule of capitalism, forced it to limit the work to 8 hours a day. But after 200 years these hours have increased somewhere from 12 to 20 due to trickery and fraud. Capitalists are demanding ‘reforms’ in labour laws to allow them to take as much work as they want from workers. We are not talking about those who work multiple shifts to make ends meet.
Some time ago, the ideal man of India, NR Narayanamurthy, had complained about the increasing laziness among the youth of India. He demanded that the working hours be increased. To enhance the productivity of the nation, he demanded 70 hours of work per week from the youth.
An example of how the corporate world increases the limit of working hours without any formal announcement was found in the death of Anna Sebastian.
Anna’s mother Anita’s appeal is to the capitalists or the corporate world that they should also take care of the person behind that work. But does capital have human ears? Would Anna’s mother Anita’s letter remain just a newspaper story and evaporate as days pass ?
