(IDEX Online) - One in five diamond workers have quit their jobs in Surat because of low wages, says a union boss.
Factory owners are also accused of failing to pay artisans' wages during India's Covid lockdowns, or of reducing them by as much as 25 per cent. That's despite a spike in demand from consumers in the USA and China.
The Diamond Workers Union is demanding a 20 per cent pay increase, claiming wages have not risen for five years.
"The diamond industry has boomed in 2020-21," the union's vice president Bhavesh Tank told the Asian News International (ANI) agency.
"This should have led to an increase in workers' salaries, but it did not happen. Diamond merchants are saying that raising salaries will cost them too much, but it is not true."
He said Surat was suffering a shortage of 125,000 diamond workers. Many had returned to their rural villages because they weren't being paid, he said.
