It took a shipping strait to be blocked some 2,500 km away, in West Asia, to blow the lid off simmering worker discontent in India and turn it into protests, now spiralling across vast swathes of industrial hubs, especially in the North.The immediate trigger is the surging prices of cooking gas cylinders, especially for those in urban areas and without addresses – making them unaffordable at current salaries, and bringing into focus the wages earned by workers. This is also spreading to the service sector, with gig workers and domestic helps joining the broader clamour for fair wages.The anger has been enough for two state governments to hurriedly hike base minimum wages, after a gap of 10 years or more. The administration in the industrial hub of Noida – where workers torched cars of factory owners before turning to the factories themselves – issued veiled threats to contractors, saying complaints against them would be dealt with severity.Another trigger has been WhatsApp forwards widely circulated in late March, which suggested that under the newly implemented Labour Codes, minimum wages will go up sharply.In early April, a month into the West Asia crisis, workers started asking questions about the promised wage hikes. The first big protest was in Manesar, Haryana, with the BJP government on April 9 notifying a 35% hike in base minimum wage effective from April 1.This pushed workers in Noida, in the suburbs of Delhi-NCR, to aggressively put forth their stance. Like Haryana, the BJP government in UP notified an interim hike in minimum wages, district wise, on April 14.A third trigger for the workers’ anger is the impact of some exogenous and intrinsic shocks to the industry, including due to the GST transition, Covid-19 pandemic, and the US-led trade upheaval to the MSME ecosystem, which is the main employer of unskilled workers in India. This is a common thread running through the protests in Manesar and Noida, and earlier ones in Barauni in Bihar and Panipat in Haryana, which broke out before the impact of the war hit.Story continues below this adData on wagesOfficial data on complaints regarding payments under the Minimum Wages Act for ‘central sphere’ establishments points to the worker discontent. For the 2025-26 financial year, 1,192 complaints had been received till July last year on salary payments by contractors or firms. Out of these, for 44 complaints, challans were issued in the metropolitan magistrate court, and in 397 cases, full salary was paid after the complaints.Data shows that post-Covid, such complaints peaked in 2023-24, when 4,240 claims regarding salaries were made. Challans were generated in the magistrate court for 132 of them, and full salary was subsequently paid in 2,451 cases.While minimum wages have been hiked in Haryana, labour unions are calling for a further increase, arguing that the amount is lower than the Rs 23,196 per month recommended by the State Minimum Wage Committee, consisting of representatives from labour unions and the industry, on December 29 last year.“Workers are still anguished, and even though they have resumed work again, they will continue their demand for a wage hike. The present wage levels are unsustainable as the cost of living has gone up sharply,” Amarjeet Kaur, the general secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), told The Indian Express.Story continues below this adThe slow wage growth in India’s informal sector was captured in the government’s own Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises for 2025, released in March this year. Its results showed that the pay for workers in unincorporated, non-agricultural enterprises – small manufacturers, service providers, and trading units – rose by just 3.9% in 2025 as against the 13% increase seen in 2023-24 (October-September), with headline retail inflation averaging 2.2% in 2025 as against 5.4% in 2023-24. The sector also saw a sharp reduction in the number of jobs it added: 74.5 lakh in 2025 compared to 1.1 crore in the 12 months ending September 2024.Meanwhile, as per the latest Annual Survey of Industries, which captures data on India’s manufacturing sector, wages per worker rose 5.5% in 2023-24 to Rs 2.16 lakh per annum. Wage growth in 2022-23 was also 5.5%. In comparison, the inflation rate based on the Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers was 5.2% in 2023-24 and 6.1% in 2022-23.Beyond wagesWorkers and trade unions point out that the issues pertain not just to wages but also working hours and conditions.Workers say that while officially they are paid for eight hours of work daily, they usually work for 10-12, with hardly any breaks. The disregard for workers’ safety, especially of women workers, and those working under precarious conditions, is another stress point, as seen in the recent accidents involving boiler blasts.Story continues below this adIn a letter to UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday, Kaur raised “the pathetic state of workers due to their exploitation”, speaking about the lack of overtime payments, workplace safety issues, the absence of basic facilities, and alleged ill-treatment of workers and violation of their dignity.Kaur told The Indian Express: “Women workers have raised concerns about washroom breaks, especially at the time of their menstrual cycle, when factory owners behave rudely with them if they take a break longer than even 5 minutes.”The worker resentment also reflects a deeper class struggle, with income inequality widening, especially after the pandemic. During the Noida protests, a video went viral of a worker pointing out that factory owners buy luxury cars and houses worth crores, while he and others like him struggle to purchase even a bicycle.The domestic workers who gathered in the hundreds outside a Noida housing complex, a day after the factory workers’ protests, also spoke about the sharp income disparity between them and their employers. One of them, who identified herself as Rekha, asked: “Each household in this society earns Rs 3-4 lakh a month. Why such a big problem when we ask them for a hike of a few thousand?”Story continues below this adAccording to the World Inequality Report 2026, released in December, income inequality in India remains among the highest in the world, with the top 10% of earners capturing 58% of the national income, while the bottom 50% receive only 15%.