Wages withheld if I don't sign?

This has been happening ever since I came to this place. There are these guys who are recruited by a maintenance contractor to clean our rooms, and most of the buildings here. New guys who come in work properly for about 4 weeks or so, and then try to evade work. First, they come knocking to your room, telling you that the room has to be cleaned. Next, they come knock the door, ask whether the room has to be cleaned. After some days, they come only when you call them, and finally, make themselves scarce. The cycle continues when new people are recruited.

This guy comes to my room this morning asking me to sign the 'room cleaned' register. Angry, these guys haven't come to my room in 2 weeks, and only a handful of days the month before. I had warned the guy about 2 weeks back for not coming regularly. This guy insists that I sign this register as they won't get their wages if it is not signed. I had dialogues like this about 6 or 7 times in the last 1.5 years, with a new set of guys each time.

I finally signed it feeling pity, but some others were not so lenient, they firmly told him off.

I have seen these guys sitting in the stairs chatting idly when one guy goes about cleaning the corridor. Sometimes they spend their times chasing each other around (!) but they find it difficult to clean your room which hardly takes 3 or 4 minutes. During festival times, they come around collecting money for 'celebrations'. Normally, I tell them to come back in 30 minutes to clean my room but they never turn up. They also say that their work timing is only upto 4 pm and if called even at 3.55 pm, they will just walk away telling their work is over for that day, which doesn't apply shen collecting this 'donation'. They come correctly at the time you told them, even if it is after 5 pm. Once this guy rejected my 'donation' of a Rs. 5 coin because it was too low, he just gave it back to me! He said he expected atleast Rs. 10!! This is the same guy that asks for any fancy thing that he sees in my room, a keychain, a pen or some things like that. Once I caught him asking one neighbour for a pen after he just got a pen from me. Again, they come regularly to my room asking for old newspapers to sell outside, whether they come to my room to clean or not!

With the first set of workers, they tried to organise a union, they 'stiked' only to have their 'leader' kicked out. One of my neighbours tried to organise a campaign for that guy and wanted us all to sign a 'petition' to the contractor. That guy had pissed me off enough already and I certainly did not want him back. I didn't know how that ended but I never saw that guy work here again. I saw him once, on the hill chatting with some new workers.


A worldwide survey was conducted by the UN. The only question asked was: "Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world?"

The survey was a huge failure.
In Africa they didn't know what 'food' means
In India they didn't know what 'honest' means
In Europe they didn't know what 'shortage' means
In China they didn't know what 'opinion' means
In the Middle East they didn't know what 'solution' means
In South America they didn't know what 'please' means
And in the USA they didn't know what 'the rest of the world' means.