People's Democracy

MEETING at Jabalpur on April 6-7, the working committee of the All India Beedi Workers Federation has decided to join the countrywide strike on April 16.

The meeting extended full support to the public sector workers’ call for countrywide strike in the public sector and financial sector on April 16. It will be noted that a number of unions and industrial federations have already decided to join the strike, and many more are coming forward to announce their participation. Now the AIBWF has called upon all the beedi workers in the country to joint the strike.

The call was announced in a big rally at Jabalpur on April 6, called by the Madhya Pradesh Ekta Beedi Workers Federation. The rally was attended by several thousand beedi workers, mostly women, from different parts of the state.

The rally condemned the central government’s moves to dismantle the public sector, undermining the base of our economic self-reliance at the behest of the USA and the IMF-Word Bank-WTO. Its ruinous economic policies have led to a galloping rise in the prices of all commodities and to joblessness. Not only that, the government has even allowed the MNCs to ravage the Indian beedi industry. The USA has stopped import of Indian beedis and is trying to export its machine-made beedis to India. The government has also increased the excise duty on beedis. The situation is that the beedi workers are not getting six days work a week. Moreover, the government is refusing to implement the minimum wage law or give identity cards to all beedi workers. Particularly the women workers, who constitute about 90 per cent of the beedi workers, are being severely exploited.

After its massive rally at Delhi on November 27, the Joint Action Committee of Beedi Workers had submitted a 10-point demands charter to the labour ministry. Many of these demands are still unmet. In pursuance of these demands, the AIBWF meeting has decided to organise a number of agitation programmes, including a countrywide demonstration on April 10. Now it is making preparations to ensure that the beedi workers take part in the April 16 countrywide strike in large numbers. (INN)