View: India Inc wants business from bottom of the pyramid but isn’t paying it enough

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

R Shankar Raman said the company is facing a shortage of carpenters and masons. Hospitals in India have been forced to hike the salaries of nurses due to the high attrition rate.

Many are migrating for better pay and working conditions. Thanks to the acute shortage of nurses, the entry-level monthly pay for nurses has increased from `15,000 to `20,000-22,000.

Gig economy workers have protested and struck work because their pay is not commensurate with their output and work conditions.

The same is the case of Anganwadi and ASHA workers in different states, who have been protesting for better wages and timely payment.

These instances point to the inadequate remuneration and dignity of labour provided to the last-mile worker in India.

Unfortunately, there is a visible resistance to doing so in the Indian business landscape. For example, if all goes as planned, trucks in India will mandatorily have airconditioned cabins from 2025.

Truck drivers could have got this basic comfort much earlier had the industry not opposed the move in 2016, citing the escalation of costs and higher freight rates.

Even as economists lament rising inequality and India’s K-shaped economic growth, there is little effort to bridge it. There has been no significant growth in real wages in the past five years — meaning the rising inflation has ensured that workers at the bottom of the labour pyramid are no better off despite a nominal increase in their pay

Companies continue to reward their CXOs disproportionately higher than they do to the bulk of their employees.

For instance, the average top executive in India now earns over 250 times the median employee compensation. In 2021, the CEO pay in the US stood at 324 times the median worker’s pay — touted