Every morning for the past 25 years, Thaiyama has followed the same unwavering routine. At the break of dawn, she rises, swiftly prepares breakfast for her family of five and rushes to catch the 8 am bus to a state public library in east Bengaluru. The library is over an hour away, and every morning, she battles the same quiet anxiety – she cannot afford to be late. Thaiyama carries the key that unlocks the library doors. Without her, the day cannot begin.

Yet, this responsibility is not officially hers. Thaiyama is employed as a safai karamchari, a sanitation worker. Hired to perform the essential work of upkeep of the state’s public library including cleaning the entire library and the adjoining areas, her work only begins here. She then sorts out sets of newspapers brought to the library by language, labels and tags them, affixes the branch seal and ensures that no paper is taken out from the library. Towards the time of the library’s closing, she re-collects all the papers dispersed, arranges them and puts them away, before locking the library doors and returning home. 

For all her work, Thaiyama earns a wage of Rs 14,500 a month. This is less than the minimum wage payable to workers employed in cleaning jobs at Urban Local Bodies and Panchayati Raj institutions as notified in the state’s minimum wage notification which is at Rs 16,164.42 currently. 

But for years even this paltry wage was out of reach for Thaiyama – who says she has been paid below the minimum wage since her joining. When she first began to work at the public library back in the 1990s she was earning as little as Rs 200 a month. Even as late as 2021, her pay slips show that she was only earning Rs 6,500 despite minimum wages payable to workers in Urban Local Bodies at the time being about Rs 11,000. Wages payable to her were referred to as ‘gauravadhana’ (honorarium) – which she received upon signing a voucher. Till 2021, her wages were paid in cash, and thereafter deposited by direct bank transfer from the Karnataka treasury.

For Thaiyama, her wages are all she can depend on for both savings and medical expenses because she has no access to social security. Both the Employee Provident Fund – a contributory scheme which provides old age pension and facilitates savings – and the Employee State Insurance which provides for health care and medical insurance are unavailable to her. 

Her income also fluctuates monthly, and any day off, whether for illness or family emergency, results in direct salary deductions, as she is not entitled to sick, casual, or earned leave.

Thaiyama is not alone in her experience. Over 300 workers, predominantly women, across public libraries in Bengaluru suffer the same predicament. 

Underpaid, overworked and bereft of social security, these workers have been protesting for almost a decade with little sympathy or no intervention by government bodies. 

Organised under the banner of Karnataka General Labour Union affiliated to the larger central trade union, The All India Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), Thaiyama and other workers had gathered in protest at Bengaluru's official and storied protest ground Freedom Park only last month. The workers demanded permanent jobs, social security and wages at government pay scales while protesting the non-payment of the state’s already meagre minimum wage. 

Gayathri, the president of the Karnataka State Public Libraries Branch of Karnataka General Labour Union told The Wire, “The government is strongly opposed to regularising us and is deliberately portraying us as part-time workers to undermine our demands. But the reality is that we've been doing the same jobs for over 20 years, working more than eight hours a day."

In a 2024 letter to the Principal Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy, the Commissioner, Department of Public Libraries claimed that there are in fact no sanctioned posts against which workers like Thiayama have been employed at the public library. Workers are employed as and when the resource requirement arises, the letter said. The letter was given to the workers’ union by the library department and this reporter has a copy of it.

“Fact remains however that the roles we perform are essential and are indispensable to the functioning of the library and not work that is sporadic or temporary. Any justifications to the contrary made by the government are only to defeat our rights”, Gayatri told this reporter when asked about this letter. 

Public libraries in a state of ruin: workers become collateral

In Bengaluru, public libraries are established and maintained under the Karnataka Public Libraries Act, 1965.  As per the Karnataka Public Libraries Act, 1965, libraries are entitled to 6% of the property tax collected by the urban local bodies in the form of library cess. The money is meant to cover capital cost of buildings, assets and the recurring expenses of purchasing books and subscriptions. 

The Act also establishes the Department of Library, whose mandatory functions among other things is ensuring proper utilisation of library funds and library manpower in the state. 

But the department has long flagged a chronic cash crunch. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), tasked with collecting the library cess, often fails to transfer the funds, leaving the department unable to cover even basic operational costs. As per a report in the Deccan Herald last year, payment of up to Rs 397.37 crore was pending from the BBMP. 

 The impact of this has been evident through the dwindling condition of public libraries across the city. Apart from badly maintained and wrongly indexed books, public libraries have been plagued with issues as disparate but basic as lack of water due to non-payment of bills, closure of toilets in the buildings and internet connectivity problems among other issues.   

It is also the case that libraries due to lack of staff are either shut earlier than the stipulated time or open late causing problems of access to many people. Except for a few permanent workers at the different  head offices at Bengaluru, which includes the librarian, attendant, and clerk, most branch offices, even larger ones like the library at Kalyan Nagar, have no permanent staff. Instead, a single permanent worker is designated as the in-charge for several branches. Similarly, across service stations in Bengaluru, there is no permanent worker deployed. A single permanent worker is assigned as in-charge for several service stations. The rest of the staff employed in public libraries are all precariously employed – contractual, temporary, and without safeguards.

In the resource war between the BBMP and the library department, it is the daily workers who have ended up as collateral.

Falling standards and the feminisation of public employment

What’s happening to workers in public libraries across Bengaluru is symptomatic of a wider national trend. Over the past few decades, the rates of public employment across the country have been shrinking. Simultaneous to this fall has been a corresponding increase in government jobs of a precarious and insecure nature:  workers employed as contract/casual and daily workers as well as workers appointed under schemes like ASHA and Anganwadi workers – many of whom are not even officially counted as "workers." Jobs once performed by permanent Group C and Group D category workers including clerical, administrative work and work like sweeping, security etc – are now outsourced to poorly paid contractual workers with no legal safeguards. 

Most of these jobs of insecure and precarious nature fielded by the government are dominated by women workers whom the state fails to recognise as permanent workers despite these workers performing crucial social services which play a critical link between the government and local communities. 

Library workers like Thiayama are emblematic of this trend, which scholars like Deepa Sinhave refer to as ‘feminisation of public employment’ – a situation where women are concentrated in insecure jobs marked by low pay, lack of benefits, and limited career mobility.

Growth in women’s employment means little if the quality of such employment is poor.  Ensuring quality employment for women in public services helps with two essentials: one, it provides women workers the safety net that they so desperately require considering their higher vulnerability to income and other shocks. Women workers are also generally more responsible with maintaining finances and are said to be more responsible in planning family finances for the benefit of their children. Two, increasing the quality and quantity of public employment will aid in expanding access to essential public services that are key to maintaining an equitable society.

The way forward

Public libraries are vital institutions – guardians of culture, access points to knowledge, and spaces that foster intellectual freedom across caste, class, and income divides. But the strength of this system rests on its workers. A robust public library network cannot and should not be built on the backs of overworked, underpaid, and unrecognised women workers.

The Karnataka government must act decisively to address the long-standing demands of library workers across the city and the state.

Ensuring decent and secure working conditions for library workers is not just about correcting an injustice. It is also a crucial step in preserving the very foundation of public services. Dignified public employment strengthens institutions, builds accountability, and reaffirms the state’s role as a model employer – one that sets the bar not just for the public sector, but for private employers as well.

Madhulika T. is a Research Associate at the Center for Labour Studies, National Law School of India University, Bengaluru.  

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