AICCTU National Council Meet

The National Council of AICCTU met recently at Bhilai from 2-4 December, 1996. The meeting was

The National Council of AICCTU has called for two major action programmes within the next two months.

1. A countrywide Jail Bharo campaign will be conducted in state capitals and major industrial/working class centres on February 4. The campaign should be accompanied by intensive and widespread propaganda centring on the following demands: (i) No privatisation of insurance sector, (ii) Stop PF loot, provide pension for all as third benefit; (iii) Declare a Comprehensive Scheme for immediate revival of sick PSUs, (iv) No curbing of TU rights, no relaxation of closure/lock-out/lay-off rules for employers. (Different states/sectors would add two more demands according to their own situation).

2. The Bihar unit of AICCTU will organise a militant Rail Roko agitation sometime in January to raise a powerful voice of protest against the continuing non-payment of wages to nearly 50,000 semi-government employees working in some 50 boards and corporations. A solidarity demonstration will be organised by the Delhi unit of AICCTU on the same day outside the Bihar Bhavan in New Delhi. AICCTU units in other states will send thousands of protest postcards in the name of Chief Minister, Bihar, Patna.

attended by 50 Councillors from Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Punjab, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Orissa. Also present were fifteen invitees from different states/sectors including a three-member delegation of observers from the Kamgar Aghadi led by Dr. Datta Samant.

Chains of red flags and festoons and arches erected in the memories of martyred labour leaders Shankar Guha Niyogi and Darasram Sahoo, AICCTU vice-president seemed to symbolise the defiant spirit and rising profile of AICCTU in this steel city where workers have of late begun to challenge the official domination of yellow and reactionary trade unionism.

Close on the heels of the National Council meeting, large numbers of workers of Bhilai steel plant stormed the office of the officially recognised INTUC union and when police tried to arrest a group of workers, thousands of fellow workers gheraoed the police to foil the whole exercise.

The Council dwelt at length on the report placed by General Secretary Com. Dipankar Bhattacharya which was supplemented by reports and comments from various states/sectors. The discussion focussed on the salient features of the UF government’s economic policy approach as have been indicated in the Common Minimum Programme and the various steps announced so far by the new regime. While issues like the setting up of Disinvestment Commission, enactment of the anti-worker new pension scheme, desperate wooing of foreign capital in every sector and the move towards privatisation of the insurance sector came up for obvious criticism, the Council also denounced the government’s plans to streamline the BIFR with a view to expediting the liquidation of so-called sick units and bring in anti-worker amendments in the Trade Unions and Industrial Disputes Acts.

It was also noted that the government was trying to legitimise the growing attack on the organised sector, public sector in particular, by making people believe that only in this way is it possible to bring about any improvement in the conditions of unorganised sector workers. Yet barring the enactment of an inadequate and loophole-ridden piece of legislation on construction workers, the government has done precious little on this front. As a constituent of the Campaign Committee for Legislation on Construction Workers, AICCTU would continue to fight for adding some real teeth to this newly enacted legislation. As for enacting a similar legislation on agricultural labourers, every effort was being made by forces within the government to delay and subvert the whole process. On the issue of minimum wages, the government is virtually moving towards legalisation of the persistence of sub-human wages by suggesting a national floor of merely Rs. 30.

The Council also resolved to oppose the government’s move to expand the ESI coverage (from Rs. 3,000 to Rs. 6,500) and raise the level of workers’ contribution to ESI fund from 1.5% to 1.75% without bringing about any visible improvement in the infrastructure and operation of ESI.

Demonstration for Revival of NTC

At the call of the All India Save NTC Action Committee, hundreds of textile workers from Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Allahabad, Kanpur and Patna demonstrated at Parliament Street on 17 December against the anti-NTC textile policy of the

Deve Gowda government. Comprising AICCTU-affiliated NTC workers’ unions in these cities as well as the Maharashtra Girni Kamgar Union led by Dr.Datta Samant, the Save NTC Action Committee enjoys majority support among NTC workers in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

A delegation of the Action Committee comprising Dr.Datta Samant, Com.Yogeshwar Gope (President, AICCTU), Com.Dipankar Bhattacharya (General Secretary, AICCTU) and NTC leaders Com. KK Niyogi, Com.Hari Singh and Com.HJ Pagare met the Union Textile Minister. A three-member delegation led by Com.Dipankar Bhattacharya also met the CMD of NTC on 19 December.

The leaders called upon the government to take immediate steps to save the eight subsidiaries of NTC from being asked to wind up operations by the BIFR. They also made it clear that any move to sell off the land and other assets of NTC mills and retrench NTC workers would be opposed tooth and nail. The memorandum submitted to the Union Textile Minister demanded the adoption of a revival plan commensurate with the social objectives of NTC, regularisation of all badli and trainee workers and payment of all PF, ESI and Gratuity dues owed by the NTC to its present and past workers.

The Action Committee has resolved to gherao the CMDs of different NTC subsidiaries on 27 December. If the union government does not take any urgent step to save NTC, militant jail bharo and rail roko campaigns will be organised at different places in January and February.

Convention on Unorganised Workers

The concluding session of the three-day National Council meeting of AICCTU at Bhilai was held in the form of a convention on the problems and struggles of contract labourers and unorganised sector workers. Joining the National Councillors in this convention were hundreds of contract labourers from Bhilai, workers from the Bhilai steel plant and Bhilai HSCL unit and stone-breaking workers from Raipur. The convention exposed the sinister strategy of multinational capital which encourages increasing employment of contract labour in permanent and perennial types of work, thereby blurring the whole division between the organised and unorganised sectors, while using the same divide to intensify attack on the rights and benefits of organised sector workers. At a time when large sections of established trade unions have also begun to internalise this heavily loaded rhetoric of organised versus unorganised workers, the convention underscored the urgent need to forge stronger ties between organised and unorganised sector workers to resist the growing offensive against trade union rights. The convention also heard written reports and messages of solidarity sent by Com. Geetha of the Campaign Committee for Legislation on Construction Workers and Com. Thomas Kochery of the National Fishworkers’ Forum.

National Convention of NPMO

The National Platform of Mass Organisations held a national convention in Delhi on 16 December. This was the first major gathering of the NPMO since the UF government came to power. In a resolution adopted at the convention the NPMO has called for launching a nationwide campaign on a charter of demands concerning various sections of the Indian people. High on the campaign agenda are demands like securing the right to work as a fundamental right, enactment of 33% reservation for women in Parliament and state legislatures and a comprehensive legislation to guarantee some of the basic rights of agricultural labourers apart, of course, from issues like corruption in high places, price rise, privatisation and minimum wages.

Addressing the convention on behalf of AICCTU, Com.Dipankar Bhattacharya denounced the anti-worker economic agenda of the Common Minimum Programme and came down heavily on the Gowda government for invoking ESMA against agitating hospital employees in Safdurjung Hospital (a central government institution) of Delhi and for its proposed moves like privatisation of the insurance sector and carrying out anti-worker amendments in the Trade Union Act 1926 and Industrial Dispute Act 1947. Com.Kumudini Pati, General Secretary of AIPWA, called upon the NPMO to come out against the growing repression on people’s struggles. She also appealed to all left and democratic MPs to remain prepared to resign from Parliament if the government does not enact 33% reservation for women. Com.Lal Bahadur Singh, General Secretary of RYA, emphasised the need for waging a popular militant struggle against corruption.

In the first leg of its national campaign, the NPMO will observe a day of countrywide picketing outside central government establishments on 25 February and a two-hour rasta roko/rail roko agitation from 9.30 a.m. to 11.30 a.m. on 28 March. A march to Parliament is also proposed to be taken out in the latter half of the Budget Session.