Save our livelihoods: Big Bazaar female staff appeal to PM

Mumbai: On the International Women’s Day, over 2,600 women across Big Bazaar outlets in India appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to save the livelihood of over 2,00,000 women working for the Future Group’s retail chain, here on Monday.

The ‘Women of Big Bazaar SOS (Save Our Sustenance)’, serving with the Future Group narrated the plight of women whose jobs are jeopardised — comprising 10,000 direct employees and another 2,00,000 indirectly earning their livelihood by supplying products to the company’s brands.

A total of 2,677 women working in various positions with Future Group from Assam to Rajasthan, Kashmir to Kerala and all other states, have petitioned the PM to “urgently intervene” and save their livelihoods from “certain ruin in the wake of the ongoing crisis precipitated by Amazon”.

“Future Retail and Reliance had entered into an arrangement through which Future’s retail stores will continue to be operated by Reliance. Reliance has also committed to clear all debts and dues owed by Future Retail to suppliers and vendors,” the Group’s appeal said.

Owing to the tough times during the pandemic, this deal kindled hopes and confidence for their continued livelihoods, but Amazon has tried to stop this tie-up and consequently the future of the women and their families hangs precariously, implored the women.

Seeking the PM’s priority attention, they pointed out how “India’s daughters continue to live in fear and under the looming threat of cruel uncertainty to our livelihoods and lives”.

They stressed that owing to close family links, leaving the towns where they currently reside was not an option, even if they stopped earning or losing their current sources of livelihood.

“Without our jobs and sources of income, we would be left at the mercy of the cruel world. We shall all suffer deeply, and our families will undergo untold and unimaginable hardships. Just to think of this, shatters our hearts,” they appealed.

They said that in the wake of the Amazon-Reliance face-off for control over India’s retail, the Future Group’s vast and vibrant service and socio-economic ecosystem is under severe duress.

“For women, retail offers the unique advantage of it being the only industry where they are readily employed in blue-collar jobs particularly in smaller towns and cities across the country,” they said.

Invoking the PM’s philosophy of ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ Mission, the Group urged him to “extend to us a little support so that we may live with dignity and be able to provide succour to our families”.

The group’s members are convinced that if the contentious Amazon interference in the FG-Reliance deal is permitted to proceed, the most severely hit will be the small-town retail women employees and those women of the extended support ecosystem set-ups where the impact of the impediment will be far greater and deeper than can be imagined, said the appeal to PM.

The appeal has been made by the Women of Big Bazaar SOS on behalf of the 10K-plus direct women staffers of the Future Group’s retail chains, plus another 2,00,000 who supply products to its associates like Central, Brand Factory, Easy Day, Heritage City, WH Smith, 7-Eleven, fbb, etc.

By IANS

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