AICCTU’s MAY DAY CALL
CHECK PRICE RISE! FOOD FOR ALL! JOBS FOR ALL !
Rights and Dignity to Workers and Toiling Peasants !
The working class, the toiling masses and the poor are reeling under relentless rise in prices of food and other essential items coupled with massive loss of livelihood, steady erosion in wages and social security, ever-growing impoverishment and pauperization and curbing of trade unions rights including creation of No-TU Zones. But powerful protests can be seen all around and on May Day this year the working class of the country will direct its growing anger and resentment towards giving a fitting reply to the ruling elite’s pro-rich, anti poor policies.
Sops for the Rich, Peanuts for the Poor
The Budget 2010 has come out as an arrogant, shameless expression of the pro-rich, pro-corporate policies of the UPA govt. marking the heights of its insensitivity towards “common man” in whose name it ascended to power.
Despite an all round protest particularly by lakhs of poor masses protesting under the left banner through out the country, the Sonia-Manmohan-Pranab trio has snubbed the common man by refusing to roll back the hikes in prices of petrol, diesel etc, which were their contribution to overall offensive of price rise.
Let us further see what the “common man” and handful of rich got from this budget. The Social Security Fund for unorganized workers, launched in this budget after several years of demands by Trade Unions, got an outlay of a mere Rs 1,000 crore, against the demand of 3% of GDP. MGNREGA got an allocation of only Rs. 40,000 crore (in real terms no increase from last year) and Indira Awas Yojana beneficiaries would get only Rs. 45,000. In contrast, the relentlessly rising defence outlay now stands at 1,47,000 crore and for corporate houses the tax exemptions and revenues foregone amounted to 5 lakh crores. Besides, the Government through this budget intends to amass Rs. 40,000 crore from selling off the profit making CPSUs through disinvestment. Public Sector Banks, the saviours of Indian economy in the times of global financial crisis, and other PSUs like coal, steel, and railways have been opened up for corporate players. The Budget has virtually pronounced the death sentence for nationalization. Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) has been further disinvested to 20%, and the Pitroda Panel has already cleared the way for BSNL privatisation.
The pro-rich, pro-corporate central policies have been echoed in the subsequent budgets placed by the various state governments, which amply express the consensus on these anti-people policies between the Centre and governments of various hues.
While 23 Indians (it is these corporate fat cats who got the cream from the budget) with a total net worth of Rs. 8,640 billion made it to the list of the world’s richest people in 2009, the year of financial crisis; the 77% or 80 crore of Indians continue to live on less than Rs. 20 a day; old age pension can be as low as Rs. 30/month, Indian children can been seen eating mud to satisfy their hunger, starvation deaths are widespread and more and more country’s poor are being pushed out of BPL list.
Workers in the World Standard Capital City
According to official estimates, 43 construction workers have died building the infrastructure for the Commonwealth Games to be held in Delhi. Unofficially the death estimates are much higher. Right in the capital city, workers are being compelled to live hellish lives in confinement, denied even the right to form trade unions and exercise other labour laws, paid much below the minimum wages with no essential provisions. Even the findings of the Committee constituted on the orders of Delhi High Court Order on working and living conditions of workers engaged in Games work have confirmed all this. The Congress-led Delhi Government has already displaced 1 lakh poor people for beautification of Delhi and due to the Games 30 lakh more are being rendered homeless, of which 12 to 15 lakh will be migrant workers. All efforts are going on to hide the poverty and pauperization in this ‘global city’, with slums being masked by decorative bamboo groves.
No-TU Zones
To aggressively pursue their pro-corporate policies, the governments are increasingly resorting to repressive methods to quell the resentment and struggles of workers. A large part of the country is being converted into No-TU Zones. Most industrial areas, even if they are not declared to be SEZs, are like SEZs and No-Protest Zones as far as the right of workers to protest goes. The latest incident in this regard is the denial of permission by Tamil Nadu DGP for a workers’ 'Long March' this month under the banner of AICCTU from Coimbatore to Chennai. The pretext for forbidding this March is that it might “disturb industrial peace”. So, from the Congress-led Haryana’s Gurgaon-Manesar belt to BJP-led Uttarakhand’s SIDCUL, from DMK-led Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore-Sriperumbudur-Irungattokottai belt to Mayawati-led U.P.’s Sonebhadra - all have been virtually converted into No-TU Zones.
Violation of labour laws has in fact become the law. To maximize profits and exploitation, outsourcing and contractualization including employing contract workers, trainees etc. in regular jobs has become the order of the day even in PSUs, govt. departments, not to mention the private organized sector. Be it the 6th pay commission or wage agreements in Steel, BSNL, Coal etc. and organized sector industries like Jute, the wages of workers are being linked with the productivity and a pattern of huge disparities in incomes between lowest and highest categories is emerging. This has resulted in immense increase of workload and erosion in real wages of workers and, on the other hand, in increase of the wealth of upwardly mobile sections. In the era of 21st century technology, the mindset and production relations of the 19th century are dominating.
Protests by workers, adivasis, women are met with repression. When agricultural workers and rural poor of Punjab raise the demand of house pattas they along with their leaders are thrown into jails. Chandigarh, the capital of Punjab, has already been shut off for even normal protests, to the extents were not allowed to celebrate even Bhagat Singh’s Martyrdom Day! When state government employees demand implementation of 6th Pay Commission, they are brutally lathi-charged and thrown into jails. The Central Government in collusion with various state governments has unleashed terror among adivasis with Operation Green Hunt in the name of fighting Maoists. The real agenda is to protect MoUs between governments and Tatas, Mittals, Ambanis, Posco etc and clear the way for corporate loot and plunder of our mineral and natural resources.
Workers Are Fighting Back
But the working class is not lying low in the face of attack of capital. From Gurgaon-Manesar to Sriperumbudur-Coimbatore the workers have shown their resolve to fight back. The agricultural and other sections of unorganized workers, working women and adivasis are putting up valiant resistance throughout the country against the policies of denial of rights, living wages and dignified life, of loot and plunder. Workers of Coal and Telecom are preparing for another big strike. Resentment simmers among steel workers. Against the Punjab Government’s move of privatization of electricity, employees have gone on strike braving all-out state repression, and with more and more common people plunging into the struggle a popular movement has emerged against this move. If the employees of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand etc. have through their long, determined struggles won the battle on implementation of 6th pay commission, the employees of J&K have waged a powerful battle on the same issue in the face of severe repression.
On May Day 2010, the Indian working class prepares for bigger battles for wages, livelihood, social security, rights and dignity. Let May Day, the symbol of the unity of workers of the world and their immense sacrifices and glorious struggles, be an occasion to rally the entire working class around the call for the reversal of policies of LPG
We Demand:
Rivers, Land, Forests,
Natural and Mineral Resources all Belong to us,
Not for Loot and Plunder of Corporates and MNCs !
No to Disinvestment of PSUs !
No to Privatization of Health, Education and other essential Services !