Run Up to the 5th National Conference of AICCTU
-- D.P. Buxi
After a decade of indiscriminate globalisation and liberalization in the garb of “economic reforms”, particularly during the saffron regime under Vajpayee, where does the Indian working class stand today?
The Second National Commission on Labour was appointed in 1999. Its agenda is based on proposals forwarded by the captains of industry – KM Birla, Nusli Wadia, PK Mittal and Ratan Tata. Some of the proposals under consideration are as follows:
After bank, insurance, power and telecom, the privatization drive has now made forays into strategic sectors like railways and defence. The NDA Government has already proposed 23% FDI in defence sector. Nearly 4 lakh medium and small-scale industries have already been closed down and thousands more are on the verge of closure. Wage freeze and cuts in facilities have become the order of the day, even in the public sector and government sector.
There is a surge of massive protests against the Fund-Bank-WTO in both developing and developed countries, in which workers and trade unions are taking an active part. Big strikes and militant demonstrations of the workers against liberalization and globalisation have become a growing phenomenon.
In India too we have witnessed a spate of agitations and strikes in the organized sector, e.g., the united strike of power workers in UP, a chain of all-India strikes of bank and insurance sector employees, the agitation in telecom sector, the recent significant postal strike and the month-long strike of BALCO workers. In the organized sector, the sponsoring committee of left and democratic trade unions, is operating as a united trade union forum, and wherever federations are not affiliated to central trade unions, sector-level united fora of trade unions/associations have emerged to meet the demand of the situation. Even the most rightist of the trade unions, like INTUC and BMS, are being forced to reflect the mood of the broad workers against the impact of ongoing economic reforms.
The following features can be identified in contemporary working class activism in our country:
(a) More than partial issues, the movement is essentially targeted against the ongoing liberalization and globalisation drive.
(b) The illusion of “job security” in public/government sectors has been shattered and in the face of a real crisis, the so-called privileged section of workers in organized sector have shown their potential to embark on organized and militant working class movement.
(c) Workers in small and medium scale industries, particularly those employed in the sick units and in other traditional and informal sectors, are engaged in a bitter defensive battle against impacts of economic reform.
(d) Contemporary working class movement starts from the premise of resisting ongoing policies of reform, but in most cases it ends up with securing some economic benefits or other facilities (for example, it starts with resisting the VRS scheme, but ends with an agreement on the terms of VRS; or it starts with the aim of resisting privatization of BALCO but concludes with an agreement on working conditions after privatization).
(e) With their numbers ever growing, contract workers remain mostly unorganized. Primary attempts to organize them for shaping the movement have to face the wrath of the mafiadom acting in collusion with the employers.
Essentially, economic “reform” means structural adjustment of the capitalist system and its latest edition has a specific thrust on liberalization, privatisation and globalisation. A desperate campaign for “second generation reforms” is now going on. Its impact on the working class can be identified as follows:
A. Reshaping the giant public sector and Central Govt. sector to advance the process of privatization effectively. To cite a few examples, in the telecom sector it started with corporatisation in selected cities via Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL) and ultimately Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) replaced Department of Technology (DoT) so as to corporatise practically the entire telecom sector. In the banking sector, either merger of sick banks with profitable big banks in public sector or segregation of typical sick banks, winding up of loss-making branches etc. are going on. In the power sector, separation of generation, transmission and distribution system and rural electrification along with ending of the monopoly of state electricity boards (SEBs) etc., have become the main agenda. In the railways, the Rakesh Mohan Commission advocated corporatisation of the railways as the main orientation and suggested that it may be initiated by separating 6 production units from the mainstream railway system.
B. Closure of small and medium industries, including textile, jute, engineering units in the public sector, has become the order of the day. Important public sector construction companies like HSCL have been turned into a symbol of the unbound misery of workers who are not getting salaries for the last 20-25 months. The recent decision of virtual withdrawal of SICA and BIFR comes as the last nail in the coffin of sick industries. The much trumpeted emergence of downstream or new export-oriented industries, cyber-industries and the high-tech small units in a few pockets can never match huge destruction of small, medium industries or sick PSU’s in our country.
C. Recruitment ban and abolition of posts, under-manning and increasing workload through multi-trade system, and retrenchment via VRS in the organized sector have directly hit employment, job security and working conditions.
D. Recently the Supreme Court has come out in defence of the contract system even in the case of jobs of regular nature and ruled that the employer has no obligation to absorb contract workers into regular workforce. The rapid spread of the contract system signifies that the composition of the working class in our country in the near future would be a small highly skilled and highly paid labour force and a big contingent of contract workers as cheap labour having no rights or dignity.
E. The Trade Union Act has just been amended to make the registration of new trade unions much more difficult. The Labour Ministry’s claim that this became necessary in order to prevent irresponsible trade union militancy is baseless and motivated. For it is an established fact that in the recent past strikes etc have been a very negligible factor in the sickness scenario. Actually this is a fresh attack on the trade union rights designed to curb the process of workers’ organizing and the rise of genuine class organizations, which challenge the domination of the old and compromising trade union leaderships.
F. The crucial right of the organized sector workers to have periodical industry-wise bipartite wage agreements is being snatched away. In the recent wage agreement in steel industry, IISCO despite being a unit under SAIL has been excluded.
G. The informal sector, e.g. unauthorized mining, loading and transportation and construction is expanding in our country. Workingwomen account for a considerable share of the unorganized workforce with additional exploitation and oppression.
In this context, we must stress the following aspects towards a bold smooth restructuring of the trade union movement:
A. Intensifying our efforts to organize the contract and other unorganized workers where we face less “competition” on the part of established mainstream trade unions.
B. Initiating a bold experiment to organize the contract labourers working in the organized sector in the common trade union platform. The best option is to develop a specific wing for contract workers within the common trade union.
C. Expanding our independent initiatives in the organized sector to explore the new scopes generated out of industrial restructuring, the new pattern of wage agreements and the new process of recognition of the trade unions.
Our trade union membership is more or less stagnant for a long time. We must strive for easy and natural methods of membership drive. Recently in a steel plant our comrades have initiated a campaign of collecting a struggle fund (Rs 10 per worker) on the basis of an appeal to the workers to prepare for a struggle on some burning issues. The workers responding to the drive would be considered our trade union members in a broad sense and our comrades are confident that they would be able to mobilize some 5,000 workers in this campaign. It is also necessary to motivate a larger number of trade union activists in the membership drive under a unified planning and to extend the campaign into the workers’ colonies and localities, so that it becomes a part of their lives. We also need to stress area-wise planning and to explore the scope of omnibus trade unions.
So far as the social role of trade unions is concerned, we must pay serious attention to the following aspects:
Trade unions must emphasize campaigns against the government as an architect of anti-worker policies in a creative way through conventions, workshops, poster exhibitions, etc.
Trade union work must be combined with area-based work. We must promote innovative methods to enhance interaction of workers with other sections of the society against the growing trend of de-industrialisation and deprivation of different services. Moreover, trade unions must develop solidarity campaign in support of other struggling working people.
A. We must appreciate and support the developing trend of united trade union action against the growing onslaughts in the name of “reforms”.
B. We should not harbour any illusion as regards the trend of rightist trade unions, particularly the BMS or Shiv Sena’s trade union wing, joining the united moves of the trade unions; instead of understanding it as a sort of transformation we must educate the workers regarding their underlying compulsion and make them conscious about the possible sabotage on the part of these unions (witnessed, for example, in the proposed strike of defense workers).
C. Without undermining the due importance of united trade union action, AICCTU must emphasise its independent advancement as a trend-setter to reshape the trade union movement.
D. We must develop our “solidarity” practice in the organized sector to mobilize middle-ranking trade union leaders and activists so as to broaden our independent “trade union blocs” in all-India federations.
E. We must also develop and consolidate our experiment of forming coordination of non-recognised struggling trade unions in the coal sector and strive to expand this in the steel sector.
To sum up, then, the Indian working class finds itself in a very complex and challenging situation. It must fight, with its back on the wall, to defend its jobs, its wages, its rights and its self-esteem; but this cannot be done without a political offensive against people responsible for its woes – against the powers that be. In such circumstances, the vanguards of the proletariat must come up with the following slogans:
Vajpayee hatao, mehnatkash bachao, desh bachao!
Develop international solidarity of working class against global capital!
Down with Fund-Bank-WTO and MNCs!
Resist privatization, downsizing and wage-cuts! Ensure job and wage security!
Oppose ‘hire and fire’ system, defend the democratic rights of the contract workers!
Resist draconian ‘reforms’ in labour laws, defend and expand trade union rights!
End gender discrimination among wage-earners!
Enact central legislation for agrarian labourers!
Organise the unorganized, stand by the struggling rural poor and peasantry!
Reshape Indian trade union movement, develop a new trade union culture!