People's Democracy

Workers Stage Huge Rally At Bhubaneswar

AT the call of central trade unions, viz the CITU, AITUC, HMS, INTUC, UTUC(LS), AICCTU and others, a huge state level rally was organised in Orissa’s capital, Bhubaneswar, on November 23. The colourful procession started from the railway station and marched through the main roads of the city, raising slogans against the LPG policies and against the move to privatise the NALCO. The rally was also in protest against the second Labour Commission recommendations, against the closures, lockouts, layoffs and retrenchments. Passage of a comprehensive act for agricultural workers was yet another demand of the procession.

About 20,000 workers participated from all over the state.

A presidium comprising Lambodar Nayak, Dyutikrushna Panda, Ramesh Jena, Jogendranath Tripathy and Sambhunath Nayak conducted the public meeting after the procession. AITUC general secretary Gurudas Dasgupta, CITU vice president Sivaji Patnaik and general secretary Bishnu Mohanty, Jogendra Tripathy and Krushna Patra, Raghunath Das (UTUC-LS), Ramchandra Khuntia, Sarat Mohanty (INTUC) and Gobinda Mishra (NALCO coordination committee) urged the workers to oppose the NALCO privatisation. They also asked the workers to implement the call of the National Assembly of Workers by participating in the law-breaking movement on January 8 and in the march to parliament on February 26.

Except the BMS, all the central trade unions, national federations, and state and central government employees’ associations participated in the rally. The participants took a vow to relentlessly fight against the anti-worker and anti-people polices of the BJP government at the centre and the BJD-BJP coalition government in state. (INN)