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Every morning, tens of thousands of security guards in India report for duty at malls, hospitals, factories and construction sites, wearing the uniform of G4S, the British security giant, now owned by Allied Universal, the largest private security firm in the world. They are promised eight-hour shifts at hiring and decent pay. Instead, guards report unpaid overtime, denial of written contracts and suppression of unionisation.

These findings come from a new UNI Global Union report, On Duty and Unprotected, based on interviews with 104 G4S guards across nine cities in four Indian states – Maharashtra, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat – conducted between April and August this year. The pattern is not confined to a few difficult worksites; it recurs in nearly every city and every type of site covered.

Many guards said they never saw a written contract, others didn’t understand the language what they signed. Some relied on an identity card, renewed year to year, as their only proof of employment after decades on the job. Others described standing 12 hours........

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