Home > Liberation Main Page > Index September 1998 > ARTICLE

Bread, Not Bombs!
Jobs, Not Tombs!
Democracy, Not Fascism!

Make the 4th
All-India Conference of AICCTU
An Inspiring Success!
(Delhi, 21-24 September 1998)


Friends,

Once again the Sangh parivar has pushed the country into the throes of a serious crisis. If Ayodhya marked one of the darkest and most disastrous chapters in our national life with the entire country reeling under the frenzy of communal violence, Pokhran-II has triggered off a ruinous nuclear arms race and enormously damaged our relations not only with neighbouring countries like Pakistan and China but virtually with the entire international community.

Saffron Games Take Their Toll

The economic and political price the nation is having to pay for these sinister saffron games is there for all to see. There is wholesale diversion of resources from social sectors to the nuclear weaponisation programme. The railway and general budgets have already unleashed a steep rise in the prices of almost all essential commodities and services. The external value of rupee is dwindling everyday which means a massive increase in our import bill and foreign debt burden.

Every voice of dissent questioning the necessity of the so-called Shakti tests in Pokhran is being dubbed unpatriotic and anti-national. Advani has identified Naxalism and the whole ideology of class struggle as enemies of "the Indian dream" and called upon the central and state governments to enact draconian laws like the recently enacted Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act 1998 (POTA) of Tamil Nadu. Replacement of the existing framework of parliamentary democracy by a US-style presidential form of government figures high on the BJP’s so-called "national agenda". Advani says the Vajpayee government is committed to removing the impression that India is a "soft state"!

Not to be left behind, some of the top bosses of our science establishment have also begun to advocate the agenda of forging a military-industrial complex. In other words, they want militarisation of the economy as the key to their vision of development.

Their Meat, Our Poison

For the champions of India’s ongoing economic reforms, the present situation is indeed tailormade for a sweeping execution of their gameplan. Just after the Pokhran blasts, the Vajpayee government sanctioned counter-guarantees for three American power companies. The entire electricity industry is now threatened with privatisation. Mining and oil exploration activities are being increasingly handed over to private companies. The budget has also declared the government’s intention to throw open the insurance sector to "Indian" private capital.

The post-Pokhran economic sanctions imposed by the US, Japan and certain European countries have come in handy for the self-styled Swadeshi government as a camouflage for its abject surrender to MNCs. The sellout to Suzuki is a very instructive case in point. As an integral part of this vigorous appeasement of global capital, plans are also afoot to revise the whole gamut of labour laws in tune with the requirements of "changing times".

For the common citizen and the working class, the present situation portends nothing but a major economic disaster. The disaster which has been in the making all through the 1990s is now fast reaching a flashpoint. The nation is confronted with an all round economic crisis of unprecedented proportions as the chickens of the new economic polices of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation, designed and directed by he three principal custodians of global capital - the IMF, World Bank and WTO - are coming home to roost.

Economic Reforms and the Indian Reality

After seven years of uninterrupted implementation of the new policies, the results are writ large on the economic complexion of the country. Far from stimulating rapid economic growth, the reforms are now only spelling recession. In the agricultural arena, there is an absolute decline in output. The value of the rupee has fallen by more than 100% in the 1990s, but contrary to the arguments of the proponents of export-led growth, this dramatic devaluation of the rupee has no led to any significant rise of Indian exports in the world market.

Every corner of the Indian economy has been thrown open to foreign capital, but this has no opened the promised floodgates of productive foreign investment. The so-called licence-permit raj has been accorded a loud state funeral, but there is absolutely no improvement in the economic performance of the corporate sector. Public sector has been pulled down from the commanding heights, but the efficiency profile of the private sector is turning out to be no better, if not decidedly poorer, in most cases. The list of sick industries, running into nearly half a million small, medium and large units, now includes companies of the stature of Dunlop.

While in India we never had the kind of "economic miracle" attributed to the economies of East and Southeast Asia, we are all set to share their current economic and political crisis. The downturn of the rupee continues unabated, infrastructural crisis is becoming intolerably acute while the priceline is soaring skyhigh. There are hundreds of cases of suicides committed by helpless peasants and workers. Those who dare to protest and resist are being systematically repressed and even killed.

AICCTU Stands for Resolute Resistance

Against this backdrop, the All India Central Council of Trade Unions is going to hold its 4th All India Conference in Delhi from September 22 to 24. On September 21, thousands of workers from different parts of the country will take out a protest march to Parliament.

Launched in May 1989, the AICCTU has just completed nine years in its mission to radicalise the trade union movement in India. But these nine years have also been among the most difficult years faced so far by our working class. As the youngest inheritor of the glorious legacy of the red flag trade union movement of the Indian working class, AICCTU has tried its best to organise a determined resistance against the mounting offensive of Indian and global capital.

Striving for the broadest possible unity in action, we have readily joined hands with every available union against specific consequences of the new policies. We have fought shoulder to shoulder with other Left-led central trade unions under the banner of the Sponsoring Committee of Trade Unions and National Platform of Mass Organisations. We have always emphasised the importance of waging political struggles against the growing aggression of rightwing forces and ideologies and to this end we have been participating energetically in struggles led by he CPI(ML).

Revolutionary Trade Unionism

As a revolutionary trade union centre, our guiding principles have always been (i) to strengthen class struggle, (ii) to promote democracy in trade union functioning, and (iii) to insist on the integration of trade union struggles with the broader political movement for democracy and thoroughgoing social transformation.

Going against the grain of conventional trade union wisdom, we have always rushed in where most established central trade unions generally do not bother to tread - among the workers in the unorganised sector and the so-called sick industries.

Beginning with only a few unions confined to a few states in 1989, AICCTU today has grown into a centre with nearly 300 affiliated unions spread over 15 Indian provinces. From the small and medium factory workers in Chennai to the jute mill workers around Calcutta, from the textile workers in Kanpur and Ahmedabad to the transport workers in Delhi, from the powerloom and beedi workers of Tamil Nadu to the tea plantation workers of Assam, from the coal miners of Bihar to the steel plant and quarry workers of Chhattishgarh, from the low-paid migrant labourers in Ludhiana to the construction workers in Jaipur, AICCTU has been steadily expanding its fighting network.

Onward to the 4th All-India Conference

As we prepare for the forthcoming September Conference in Delhi (the first three conferences were held respectively in Chennai (May 1989), Calcutta (May 1992) and Patna (September 1995) respectively), our attention is focussed on the following major questions confronting the trade union movement:

«Deindustrialisation: large-scale closure of industrial units in all major industrial centres including Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Calcutta, Kanpur and Ahmedabad;

«Privatisation: the public sector in India is threatened with a major crisis of existence as disinvestment and a virtual sabotage by the various official quarters spell its doom;

«Contract Labour: job security has become ever more elusive as wholesale induction of contract labour in jobs of perennial and skilled nature blurs the increasingly irrelevant distinction between the organised and unorganised sectors;

«Social Security: the question of social security remains a cruel mockery for the overwhelming majority of unorganised workers as governments fail to enforce the payment of "legal" minimum wages even though such wages stagnate below the poverty line;

«Women Workers: the number of women workers is on the rise, but they are being increasingly forced into low-pay low-security jobs; also, equal rights for women workers and a nondiscriminatory working environment remain a far cry;

«Trade Union Rights: systematic violation and denial of trade union rights has become an everyday occurrence even as plans are afoot to drastically trim the existing "rights" in tune with the times.

 

Friends, if you sympathise with our cause, we would be glad to have your valuable cooperation which alone can make the conference and rally a real success. Let us join hands to transform this occasion into a grand demonstration of the resolve and strength of the Indian working class to thwart the growing fascist threat. Victory shall be ours!

 

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