People's Democracy

MEETING WITH PM

 TUs Voice Strong Opposition To Economic Policy

 THE prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, called a meeting of all the central trade unions on October 18. Union labour minister, Sahib Singh Verma also attended this late evening meeting which was primarily held following the vociferous criticism of the government voiced by all the trade unions at the 38th Indian Labour Conference held recently in New Delhi. They had expressed anger at the government’s hobnobbing with the employers’ lobby in formulating the anti-people and anti-national policies.

  Those who attended this meeting on behalf of the trade unions included P K Ganguly (CITU), Gurudas Dasgupta (AITUC, Umraomal Purohit (HMS), G Sanjeeva Reddy (INTUC), Hasubhal Dave (BMS), Sunil Sengupta (UTUC) and Achintya Sinha  (UTUC-LS).

The trade unions pointed out to the prime minister how his commitment to meet the central TUs every six months to discuss policy issues, given during the countrywide PSU strike in 2000, never materialised. On the contrary the prime minister and the government frequently made important policy announcements from the employers fora. The leaders while expressing strong opposition to the economic policy of the central government, listed out various issues which needed to be dealt with.

The prime minister responded to the points raised by the trade unions by only reassuring  that talks would be held with the trade unions on the policy matters such as disinvestment and labour related issues. On unemployment situation, while expressing concern, the prime minister asked for remedial suggestions from the trade unions to which the trade unions promptly responded by suggesting reversal of the ongoing economic policy, both in content and direction.  The union labour minister stated that the trade unions would be consulted on the recommendations of the Second National Labour Commission.

The trade unions pointed out that each and every privatisation case is ultimately getting exposed as a horrendous scam. Almost in all cases it was an open gift to private buyers, both domestic and foreign, through deliberate under-valuation despite opposition from all quarters except the vested interests. Even the CAG had to make stringent comments on those gross irregularities. All the trade union leaders present in the meeting have recorded their opposition to such anti-people policies and demanded their reversal. The trade union movement has already decided and has been preparing for countrywide agitation against such anti-people policies, the leaders conveyed to the prime minister in clear terms.

The trade unions also voiced their strong opposition to the recommendations of the Second National Commission of Labour which has basically focused on concrete proposals for giving absolute liberty to the employers to hire and fire, deploy contract workers in all kinds of jobs, virtually ban the right to strike and drastically curtail other trade union rights. It was also pointed out that there was some expression of pious intention for an umbrella legislation for unorganised sector workers but the recommendations in that regard were merely indicative and extremely vague.  The unions demanded thorough discussion with all the unions on the matter before any step or decision on action to be taken on the Labour Commission Report is even conceived by the government.