The unions have claimed that this year’s strike will be bigger as the number of striking workers is expected to swell as much as 18 crore, larger than last year when around 14 crore workers participated.

Gurudas Dasgupta General Secreatary of All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) said, “Most important is control of inflation, particularly the food inflation, social security for the unorganised labour, minimum wage for all unorganised should be Rs. 18,000, road is an investment for profit making public sector, low margin of banks etc are the main demand on which we are going on strike.”

Essential services such as banking, public transport and telecom will be affected by the strike.

The CTUs will strike work protesting against what they call the government’s apathy towards their 12-point charter of demands including a monthly minimum wage of Rs. 18,000, controlling price rise and assured minimum monthly pension of Rs. 3,000.

However, Indian Railways and other central government employees will not participate in strike as government has already constituted a committee to look into their demand of raising monthly minimum wage from Rs 18,000 to about Rs. 26,000 under the 7th Pay Commission.

Resonating similar sentiments, Roman Pandey of Indian National Trade Union Congress told ANI that they are against the handing over of defence and railway industry to the private players.

“We want that ILO conventional 87, 98 needs to be ratified because this gives protection of job security and social security to working people and they have the right to join union of their choice, they can go for collective bargaining. These global rights are being denied by the government. wherever the assured in Geneva in ILO that we are going to ratify, we are fighting for that,” he added.

The Bhartiya Majdoor Sangh (BMS) has decided not to participate in strike.

“We gave the notice to the government, but when the government took the step forward then we decided to withdraw from the strike. The effect of strike is not visible, as the entire rail system is working. They have tried a lot to mislead the people but that phase is over, now no one from Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh will be part of this strike,” BMS organising secretary Pawan Kumar told ANI.

Last year also on September 2, the union has opted out of the strike at the last moment.

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31st August 2016

Central Trade Unions Reiterate countrywide General Strike on 2nd Sept, 2016 Group of Ministers (GOM) Announcement an eyewash

The Central Trade Unions reiterate the call for countrywide general strike on 2nd September 2016 against the anti-worker and anti-people policies of the Govt. in view of utterly unresponsive and undemocratic attitude of the Govt. The CTUs view the announcements made by Committee of Ministers as an eyewash and decide to go ahead with the Strike. Meagre raise in minimum wage to Rs.9100/- per month in central sphere is not binding on the States.

The CTUOs expressed dismay over utterly negative attitude of the Govt. towards basic demands of the workers on minimum wages as per consensus formulation of the Indian Labour Conference, on universal social security including pension for all workers including those in unorganised sector, against mass scale contractorisation of permanent and perennial work, against onslaught on basic rights of the workers through so called labour-law-reforms through various state governments and also by the centre in the background of large scale violation of labour laws being promoted by both the central govt and also many state govts, desperate move for privatisation/disinvestment of strategic and sensitive public sector units, and promoting limitless FDI in sensitive sectors like Defence, Railways, Banks, Insurance, Retail and Pharmaceuticals etc. which is also against the interest of the national economy.

The CTUOs made it clear that the desperate bid of the Govt for changing the labour laws both through central and many state govts is basically designed to throw even the overwhelming majority of the organised sector workers out of the coverage and purview of all basic labour laws which would render all other rights and benefits of the working people virtually meaningless.

The CTUOs also noted with dismay that the Govt while making public statement on being positive on the demands of the workers, has actually been actively pushing through executive measures, one after another, just in the opposite direction, against the interest of the working people in the grab of ensuring so called “else of doing business”. All these proactive initiatives militate against the basic interests and rights of the working people. Even the non-striking Central Trade Union also officially recorded its opposition.

The CTUOs expressed satisfaction over the increasing response by the workers throughout the country to the call for united action. The strike is going to be complete in industrial sectors such as transport, financial, power, coal, textile, automobile, port and dock, steel, oil, defence production, scheme, education etc. sectors and Central and State Govts. employees. In some states it is going to be bandh like situation.

It is unfortunate that during the past one year, the Group of Ministers appointed for discussion with the CTUOs on 12 point charter has not convened even a single meeting but has been only talking to BMS which has not joined the strike call. The CTUOs denounce such undemocratic bias of the Govt.

The CTUOs condemn the move of the central govt to divide the workers in the face of ongoing strike campaign and create confusion through making misleading statements on its so called positive attitude on workers’ demands both directly and through their various agencies and allies.

While expressing confidence that such dubious action to divide the workers will not succeed, the CTUOs appeal to the working people of the country irrespective of affiliations to further widen their unity and unitedly combat the anti-worker, anti-people policies of the Govt through making the call for countrywide general strike on 2nd September 2016 a total success.

AITIC
HMS
OIFU
AIUTUC
SEWA
AICCTU
UTUC
LPF

And independent federations of Workers/Employees.

Source http://confederationhq.blogspot.in

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ANNUAL BUDGET 2015·16 : DECEPTION AND LOOT ON COMMON PEOPLE

The Annual Budget presented today by Modi Govt is an articulation of anti-people and pro-corporate bias camouflaged by so called pro-people rhetoric. May be it is now the time for them to reciprocate for the total patronage, both in materials and otherwise, from the big-business lobby, both domestic and foreign at the time of last General Elections. But the Irony is that after assuming power at the centre, the NDA combine got more concemed about the donors not for those who voted them to power.

The blatant deception behind the high decibel sound-bite of “Daridranarayana” by the Finance Minister stands exposed by the fact that the Govt sacrificed Rs 8,325 crore on direct tax account by abolishing wealth Tax and reducing the corporate tax for their big-business/corporate bosses while imposing a burden of almost three times on the common people by hiking indirect tax to gain Rs.23,383 crore. Added to this is the huge concessions flowed to the big business lobby including the foreign speculators by absolving them from minimum altemative tax. In fact the total tax concessions given to the rich and big-business (around Rs 51akh crore plus), if not given, could fully wipe out the fiscal deficit of the Govt.

Moreover, the first full-fledged budget of the Modi Govt presented an exercise reflecting a visible contraction in expenditure almost in all fronts authoring a decline of Rs 17145 crore compared to 2014-15. And such decline is reflected in either drastic decline or stagnation of expenditure/allocation of central plan outlay in the sectors like Agriculture, Rural Development, social services, Health & family welfare, women & child development, education, minority affairs etc. And notable is that compared to last full-fledged UPA-II budget in 2013-14 (2014-15 budget was a product of both UPA and NDA) decline in budgetary allocation in all fronts, particularly involving welfare of common people is so drastic that the size of the entire budget gets pruned by around Rs 3 lakh crore. Can such contractionary budget create any momentum for growth?

The allocation for various central govt schemes like ICDS, Mid-day-meal, ASHA etc has been either reduced or kept at the same level. The allocation of only Rs 607 crore for the National Social Security Fund for the 90 crore unorganized sector workers is nothing but a mockery. On the other hand launching of so called Atal Pension Yojana is nothing but the deceptive repackaging of the swabalamban scheme already launched during the UPA regime.

That is why the budget speech remains reckless in painting a picture of growth and prosperity for all in future just to confuse and mislead the common people. Simultaneously fast-track reforms for the big coprorates are being pushed at the cost of common people. In the name of targeting on the needy and avoiding leakages, subsidies on food, fertilizers, fuel and social sector are being drastically cut putting mass of the people in more distress.

Budget speech was eloquent on pushing disinvestment of shares of public sector and this time the Finance Minister also mentioned about “strategic disinvestment” meaning total sell-out. As such target for disinvestment is kept at Rs 69,500 crores. The Minister also announced the decision to corporatize the major ports with the ulterior motive to put them in the track of disinvestment and privatization. Same bent of mind made the Minister to speak about setting up so called autonomous bureau to find professional heads of the public sector banks and also for raising funds through differentiated strategies-a clear blue-print for decontrol and privatization.

The Finance Minister, going beyond his brief has proposed to divert Rs 6000 crore from EPF fund for so called senior citizens’ welfare fund. EPF corpus including the unclaimed amount belongs to subscriber-workers and the Central Board of Trustees of EPF is the custodian of that fund which cannot be appropriated by the Govt for whatever purpose it may be. Similarly proposition to make EPFcontribution optional and aligning the ESI with IRDA schemes are totally retrograde much to the detriment of the interest of the working people and must be opposed and resisted by the working class movement.

A primary glance of voluminous budget papers clearly reveals the total deception being engineered on the people by Modi Govt, which actually initiated an exercise of transferring bonanzas to big-business corporate lobby sucking the common people and the working people in particular. This can no way bring either equitable growth in the economy nor even any relief, not to speak of benefit to the people who actually creates growth and generate flows to national exchequer. Such anti-people and deceptive exercise must be exposed before the common people and fought back resotutety by the united trade union movement.

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In Rajya Sabha Minister mallikarjun Kharge submitted a statement on 13th March, 2013 regarding the all India strike by Central Trade Unions as follows…

“Government was aware of the two days all India Strike by different trade unions on February 20 and 21, 2013. A meeting was convened by Union Minister of Labour & Employment with the representatives of Central Trade Unions (CTUs) on 13th February, 2013 to discuss the charter of demands. The demands of CTUs were discussed at length.

It was clarified to the Union representatives that their demands would be looked into by the Government and they were requested to withdraw strike. The Hon’ble Prime Minister also made an appeal to CTUs to withdraw their country-wide General Strike. Subsequently, a group of Senior Ministers of the Cabinet held a meeting with the representatives of the major CTUs on 18th February, 2013.

The GoM assured the representatives of CTUs that Government is serious on the demands related to working class and taking all possible measures to redress them. They also appealed to the representatives of CTUs to reconsider their stand for going on strike.

Government has taken various measures to address the concerns raised by the trade unions. Particular attention is drawn to the huge amount of food subsidy incurred by the Government to ensure availability of food grains to the poor at very concessional rate through the Public Distribution System. The Government’s efforts to pass the Food Security Bill in the Parliament will further increase the availability of subsidized food grains to the larger segments of the population. Ministry of Labour & Employment has prepared a National Employment Policy to ensure that the growth process is inclusive and equitable.

The policy has been drafted with a view to mainstreaming employment into policy making for socio-economic development of the country. It will provide a proper framework towards achieving the goal of remunerative and decent employment for all women and men in the labour force. So far enforcement of labour laws in Central Sphere is concerned, there exists a well-defined and effective machinery. Similar arrangements are also available in the States. The Government has enacted Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act, 2008. The Government of India has also set up National Social Security Fund (NSSF) with a corpus of Rs.1000 crore. National Social Security Board (NSSB) has also been constituted which is advising the Government from time to time on Social Security Schemes.

Action is being taken to amend the Contract Labour (Regulation & Abolition) Act, 1970 wherein it is, inter-alia, proposed that in case where the contract labour perform the same or similar kind of work as the workmen directly appointed by the principal employer, the wage rates, holidays, social security provisions of contract labour shall be the same as are available to the directly appointed workmen on the roll of principal employer. Further, a Bill is being brought before the Parliament to amend the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 to provide a National Floor Level Minimum Wage”.

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