Varsha, who holds a BA degree, works in wiring assembly at a Noida factory, carefully contributing to power the household appliances across India. But when her landlord comes knocking for rent during the first week of the month, she has no answer. Her contractor pays salaries at will; some workers get it on the 7th, others on the 11th. "The landlord feels we are lying; we are just stuck in the middle,” she told The Core.

Varsha is one among several contractual factory workers in Noida's industrial belt who took to the streets this week, demanding wage parity with their counterparts in Haryana, where the state government notified a 35% minimum wage hike last week following sustained protests.

Following the mass protests in Noida Phase 2 on Monday, the Uttar Pradesh government announced a 21% interim hike in minimum wages for workers in Gautam Buddha Nagar and Ghaziabad.

This comes even as the police cracked down on Tuesday morning after the protests grew violent.

The demonstrations affected electronics and auto parts units across the Noida-Greater Noida corridor, drawing several workers from assembly lines, wiring units and component factories onto the streets.

While the crisis in West Asia refuses to die down thousands of miles away, economic fallout from the war is making even basic survival difficult. A cooking gas crisis and inflation on essentials are stretching already meagre salaries to their breaking point.

Will The Protests Go On?

Despite this announcement of adjustment, labour groups indicate that demonstrations are likely to continue as they push for parity with neighbouring regions and demand that they be passed on by the companies.

"When salaries for workers have increased in Haryana, what wrong have we done to not deserve the same pay?" asked Shweta, who works at GK Enterprises, a Sector-68 supplier of LED and heating wires. She joined two and a half years ago at Rs 11,000 a month. But that number has not moved, even as permanent workers at the same company have seen revisions.

She also flagged the absence of safety equipment for machine operators. Her sister lost a finger in a machine accident, she said. The company's response was to hold a meeting and advise workers to be careful with their hands.

At Dixon Technologies, Vikas Kumar spends his shifts checking mobile display plates on an assembly line, earning Rs 12,000 a month. After Rs 5,000 in rent and Rs 400 per kg for gas, which is being sourced at a premium amid the ongoing supply crunch, little is left.

After the protest on Monday, he said the company had asked the workers to skip the night shift that day and the full day shift on Tuesday. "But nobody is listening to us," he said. His demand, he added, was not extraordinary. "We just want whatever the government is giving us to be passed on by the company."

The workers that The Core spoke to said that they had been demanding hikes for a while, but recently things have gotten more difficult with rising inflation and a cooking gas crisis in light of the West Asia war.

The arithmetic is unforgiving for almost everyone here. Another woman worker with a child, earning Rs 10,000 a month, said she paid Rs 5,000 in rent and mentioned spending Rs 3,000 on an LPG cylinder bought from the black market. By the end of the month, she was left with barely any savings.

The workers said that the protests in Haryana’s Manesar also inspired them to take to the streets.

Ripple Effect

The wage unrest has spread beyond factory floors. Housemaids at Cleo County, a high-rise condominium complex of 24 towers and approximately 2,638 homes in Noida's Sector 121, staged a protest on Tuesday morning, demanding a wage hike in line with the relief extended to factory workers.

"The government has increased wages for factory workers; we also deserve a hike," said Sonam, a 25-year-old domestic worker originally from Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh, who currently earns between Rs 2,500 and Rs 3,500 per household for cleaning.

The protest, however, turned tense when police arrived at the site. "Police arrived in the morning and began stone pelting. They hurt a lot of us and arrested a few," another protester, told The Core.

Manesar Back To Normal

Last week, IMT Manesar, which is one of Haryana's most significant industrial hubs, home to Maruti Suzuki and a dense network of ancillary units, saw factory workers clash with police, with several protesters arrested.

The Haryana government responded by notifying a 35% minimum wage hike, following sustained protests and work boycotts over rising living costs linked to the West Asia conflict.

Work has since resumed, with shifts running normally. "Workers are going on normal shifts, some are even doing overtime now to make up for the time lost during the strikes," Sham Murti of the Automobile Industry Contract Workers Union (AICWU) told The Core.

Murti added that contractual workers have 11 pending demands, including timely salary disbursement by the 7th of each month, safety gear, medical support and a night allowance increase from Rs 50 to Rs 100, which have been agreed to verbally but are yet to be committed in writing.

"We do not want to go the violence route. We just want our demands to be heard peacefully," he added.