What’s on the agenda today?

Hey {{First Name| there}},

Last week, nearly 45,000 workers from different industries across 80 locations in Noida have taken to the streets.

Vehicles were torched, property damaged, and workers clashed with police deployed in riot-control gear. Tear gas. Stone pelting. Road blockades.

This isn't a small dispute — it's a breaking point.

And as HR professionals, this should matter to all of us.

In This Edition We Cover

  • What the protest is actually about

  • Why it got to this point

  • What HR should do right now — in their own companies

  • How to make sure this never happens on your watch

1️⃣ What Are Workers Protesting For?

This isn't about one bad employer. It's about years of ignored frustration finally boiling over.

Here are the six core demands workers are raising:

  • 💰 A minimum wage of ₹20,000/month — workers currently earn between ₹11,313–₹15,000, with one worker saying "I earn ₹13,500 — I save nothing, can't send money home, pay ₹5,000 rent and ₹4,000 on rations. How will I send my children to school?"

  • ⏱️ Fixed 8-hour shifts — many are working up to 12 hours a day with no extra compensation

  • 💸 Overtime pay — hours worked beyond shifts are going unpaid

  • 🏭 Safe working conditions — workers are demanding formal safety mechanisms, especially for women

  • 📋 Salary arrears cleared — workers say pending dues and retirement benefits have been withheld

  • 📉 Wage parity with neighbouring states — Noida's minimum wage is 25.67% lower than Gurugram's and less than half of Delhi's ( ₹18,456)

2️⃣ Why Did It Come to This?

The trigger was simple: Haryana raised its minimum wage by 35% — from ₹14,000 to ₹19,000. Workers in Noida, doing the same work just across the state border, wanted the same.

But the underlying causes ran much deeper:

  • Years of stagnant wages against rising inflation and living costs

  • No real channel to raise grievances — workers felt unheard inside their factories

  • Some workers reported their wages actually dropped over time — from ₹90/hour during apprenticeship to just ₹50/hour a year later

  • No HR presence on the floor — complaints about working conditions went unaddressed for too long

  • Rising global living costs, partly driven by fuel supply disruptions, made already-stretched wages even harder to survive on

The result? The protests turned violent on Sunday, with demonstrators vandalising vehicles, damaging property, and clashing with police. The government has since announced a wage hike — but workers say the new rates are still insufficient.

3️⃣ Could This Have Been Avoided? Absolutely.

This didn't happen overnight. There were warning signs everywhere — and most of them are things HR is positioned to catch.

  • 🚩 Wages not reviewed against neighbouring regions or inflation for years

  • 🚩 No accessible grievance mechanism for floor-level workers

  • 🚩 Overtime worked but not paid — a legal and trust issue

  • 🚩 Safety concerns raised but not acted on

  • 🚩 No regular communication between management and workers about pay decisions

When people feel they have no voice inside the system, they find one outside it.

4️⃣ What Should HR Do Right Now?

You don't need to wait for a protest to act. Five things to check this week:

  • 💰 Benchmark your wages — how do you compare to neighbouring districts and states? When did you last review?

  • ⏱️ Audit working hours — are overtime hours being worked and not paid? That's both a legal and trust issue

  • 📣 Test your grievance channel — does one exist, and do people actually trust it enough to use it?

  • 🏭 Walk the floor — don't wait for escalation. Talk to workers. Safety and wellbeing concerns rarely reach HR on their own

  • 📢 Communicate before you're forced to — if wages are under review, say so. Silence creates rumours, and rumours create fear

5️⃣ The Bigger Picture for HR

What happened in Noida is an extreme outcome — but the conditions that led to it exist in more workplaces than we'd like to admit.

Low wages. Long hours. No voice. No visibility.

The role of HR isn't just to process payroll and manage policies. It's to be the early warning system. To notice when people are struggling before it becomes a crisis.

Because once it becomes a crisis, the damage — to people, to companies, to trust — is very hard to undo.

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Dr. Udai Pareek centenary series

"Brilliant“ isn't the word most people use for Dr. Udai Pareek. "Generous" is.

As I've been reading more about people who worked with him, one pattern keeps coming up: He treated ideas as public goods. He didn't guard them. He didn't build walls around them. He shared them — with students, practitioners, anyone who would use them.

This week, I found myself thinking about the first generation of HR leaders he shaped. The people who sat in his classrooms, read his early work, and went on to build HR functions across India.

It made me realise something: His real legacy isn't just the frameworks he created. It's the people he shaped.

Next in the series: OCTAPACE — the 8 values that predict whether your culture is real.

— Kartik Mandaville, Founder & CEO, Springworks

🎉 What’s Coming Up!

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