Salaries For Giani'S And Granthi'S In Uk Gurdwaras

[GurSa Singh]

To be fair....being in a position to be able to send £80 to Punjab each week is to be in a very good position. At the end of the day we need to remember that there is no clergy in Sikhism. The Gianis are just doing a job. Usually a 'job' thats been the family occupation for generations. Other family's, where something like carpentary is the family occupation, only get to send £50 per week from Dubai and Muscat...and this is despite having to slave in very hard manual labour for 100 hours per week. The gianis have got it good.

If we bring it down to a job then compared to the Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim clergy it's pretty poor. A vicar averages £30k.

The average salary for a Vicar in the UK is:

£30,100

Job profile for a Vicar

Preparing and leading Sunday church services, visiting the sick, preach sermons and lead the chuch in mission and out reach to the local community. Chair various church and community comittees. Conduct Baptisms, weddings and funerals. Facilitate relavant youthwork and wider community involvement such as drop ins and the like. Pioneers fresh expressions of worship for the current generation. Often act as curator for an old building overseeing its care and repair.

- Vicar Job Profile

[West London Singh]

Doesn't matter what the average salary is for a vicar. The same goes for mullahs and pandits. The problem with us Sikhs born in the west is that because we are surrounded by religions that have a 'clergy' we mistakingly think we also therefore must have a clergy. The fact is Sikhism does NOT have a clergy. The gianis in Gurdwaras are just fellas like you and me...usually carrying on with the family occupation.. simply doing a job for money.

[Sikhistan]

Doesn't matter what the average salary is for a vicar. The same goes for mullahs and pandits. The problem with us Sikhs born in the west is that because we are surrounded by religions that have a 'clergy' we mistakingly think we also therefore must have a clergy. The fact is Sikhism does NOT have a clergy. The gianis in Gurdwaras are just fellas like you and me...usually carrying on with the family occupation.. simply doing a job for money.

Noted your point and i agree with you but then at the same time.. do take a look at the picture with different angle..

One singh friend of mine gave me this example and i can relate that to this issue:

I have a house with big yard - garden/trees/shrubs/flowers etc. I own the house and initially it is my job to take care of the yardwork but being really busy @ work and other wordly things, i couldn't maintain the garden and thus hired the professional gardener @ 90$/month to take care of my yard work. Doing that my house looks good, neat and clean from pest, weed and so on.. It will also bump up my house price in the area.. It is my choice to either hire professionals; who owns good equipment, give all type of garden fertilizer and so on to keep my grass green.. OR i can hire a non-professional gardener who will come to attend his duty but will not do that job that i prefer him to do as i will be paying him waaay below the market value.

Without any offense, same goes with our gurdwara system.. It is initially our job (YOU/ME) to take care of gurughar and do sewa regularly (which means daily). But we don't do it as we are either busy with work, school, family etc.. More than 90% of us don't even know what to do.. hell i don't even know how to take hukamnama properly or do kirtan di sewa etc.. So, it will be best for us to keep honest sewadars from sangat and pay them good (at least that is what we can do).. Giving them proper salary will keep our young generation in proper shape and keep bad elements away (just like professional gardener keep garden green/neat/weed-free).. OR we can give salary waaay below minimum wage and today result is in front of us- with major drug, dowry, caste, patit/mona problem in our society.

Try to do sewa as much as we can but at the same time if lack of proper sewadars.. hire professionals to do the tip-top job !!!

[So_Gupt]

My Family member was a granthi and weekly pay was £80 + £10/15 from kirtan or other paaths

^ Funny thing is that Granthi;s are paid the least amount..To be honest, gurudwara is not a business place at all, but I seriously think granthi's should be paid the highest ..I feel disgusted..cos if i worked the amount of hours they do at my workplace (more cleaning/sorting shelves less work), I would seriously no joke, would earn more than a grand for just working a week.

I really do hope to get into a good university and come out with a such a job, where i would not hesitate to write a cheque to a granthi.

Other most disgusting thing is those people, that abuse granthi's not very well educated, well why dont you educate them init..

Such a sensitive issue, i really hope to put an end to this..Only thing i hate in life..

[So_Gupt]

WJKK WJKF,

I have dealings with Giani's and Granthi's on a daily basis due to their visa problems and have made the following observations and just want to know everybody's views on the subject:

1). I have never seen a single Giani or Granthi till date who has been issued with a single wage slip. Forget a P60....not even one wage slip...i have dealt with over 300 applications. Gurdwaras dont even pay their National Insurance contributions for their own employee. These are not just the small Gurdwara's but even the big ones.

2). The majority of them are brought over from India on visas the conditions of which state they will abide by National Minumum wage, however upon getting here the Giani's NI is not paid by the employer and no wage slip or P60 is issued to a Giani.

3). The common practice is to say that the Gurdwara provides free food and accomodation to the Giani as part of his salary package. From my knowledge langar is free to everybody (unless Giani's get special dishes which i doubt). As for accomodation the Gurdwara also benefits as it gets a full time employee guarding the premises.

4). From my personal experience many Giani's dont even get paid more than £80 per week (i have seen some on £40 per week). Out of this the Giani is expected to maintain himself and his wife and children back home. Try feeding a family of 4 on £80 per week.

5). Many people complain that Giani's who come from India work elsewhere and do other jobs. I would suggest the reason for this is the low wages given to them. If they got minimum wage they would not need to work elsewhere.

6). Unfortunately i have also seen many cases of where these Giani's have actually been charged in India by some committee members in order to get a visa. I was once sat in the British High Commission in New Delhi and personally saw 4 Jatha sitting there waiting to apply. After they all got refused they came to me for advice and it turned out none of them were Ragi's at all. In fact they had agreed to pay the Pardhaan of a Gurdwara 8 lakh rupees for each visa (roughly £10,000). One of the applicants bechara had been told for the last year to grow a beard and "learn some path" by the Pardhaan. I have a witness to this event as seated next to me was the owner of a famous UK based punjabi radio station. Even he was shocked.

My points are 2 fold:

Firstly we complain about the quality of Giani's and Granthi's however nobody has ever exposed the situation or fought for the rights of them (i recently did a show on Sukh Sagar Radio about this and exposed a few home truths). How are we expected to get top quality employees in any field if we are unwilling to pay them the appropriate salaries (forget expected salaries they dont even get minumum wage). What actually is happening is akin to bonded labour where a Giani is promised to be made permanent in the UK in return for ignoring his basic employee rights.

Secondly we complain about many things however how come nobody complains about the immigration fraud openly carried out by the Gurdwara committees over the years? Where has all of this money charged from potential Giani's to come to the UK gone? In order to sponsor a Giani letterheads of Gurdwaras have been openly misused. The Same letterheads contain quotes from the Gurbani on them. The Gurdwara has become a source of earning money from potential immigrants.

If anybody was expected to survive in the UK on £60 a week and bring up a family and work full time then surely any person would look for alternative employment. However the Giani's cant even do that because they are tied down to their Gurdwara for up to 5 years.

Please note i am not saying that all Gurdwaras engage in these practices but the majority of the ones i have seen have done in the past and these include some big Gurdwara's. I may be worng in my points however i only comment on my own experiences and dealings with Giani's and Gurdwaras. I would love to hear what Gurdwara committees actually have to say on this issue.

Tbh, i didnt read what you wrote and went on giving my opinion.

Buh yeh ^ all of above is so true, really glad somone bought this issue..

[harjapbhangal]

Don't really agree with West London Singh and his comments that Gianis have got it good. You can't compare people in dubai with people in the UK. If you want to make a salary comparison then you should make that of a Giani in the UK (£80) and an illegal person from India in the UK. An illegal person in the UK works 6-7 days per week earning around £40 per day minimum. So they make around £240 per week. A lot of these Giani's would have been better off if they came on the boat or trucks. Giani's get exploited because the committees say we are giving them free accomodation and food (which isn't strictly true as food is free for anybody and the accomodation is equally as beneficial to the committees as the Giani's act as night watchmen).

I am sure a Giani in Dubai doesn't get to send home as much as a worker in Dubai.

The Gianis haven't got it good, the committees have. They spend £100,000 on legal battles and lawyers fees on cases against each other yet can only pay their Giani's £80??...Also Giani's dont actually save £80. That is their total wage per week. And they are not even allowed to have any public benefits. They can't sign on or have any public funds. they can't go to complain anywhere because the Committees will kick them out and cancel their visas. There are many Gianis in the UK who came over as Gianis but are now living illegally. In fact they say they are happier now as they earn more and can at least feed their families.