People's Democracy

CITU GENERAL COUNCIL CALL:

Defend Right to Strike, Intensify Struggles!

W R Varada Rajan

ADDRESSING a huge rally at the end of a four-day session of the CITU general council, held at Cuttack on July 24-27, 2003, union general secretary M K Pandhe called upon the working class of the country to stoutly defend their right to strike in view of the attempts by various quarters to impinge on it. He also announced a series of programmes of intensified actions, carrying further forward the process of countrywide resistance to the policies of imperialist globalisation and attack on labour rights, vigorously pursued by the BJP-led NDA government at the centre.

Lambodar Nayak, president of the Orissa CITU, presided over the mass meeting inside the Jawaharlal Nehru indoor stadium, where several thousands of men and women from across the state converged after a colourful procession. Janardhan Pati, vice president, Bishnu Mohanty, general secretary of Orissa CITU, K Hemlata, secretary, CITU and Sivaji Patnaik, veteran leader of the working class of Orissa, were among others, who addressed the meeting.

TN GOVT FLAYED

Meeting in the background of the atrocious attack unleashed by the Jayalalitha government in Tamil Nadu against the 13 lakh employees and teachers who embarked on an indefinite strike from July 2, the general council called for countrywide powerful massive demonstrations to be held at state/district  headquarters on August 13. All CITU unions throughout the country will also send protest telegrams to the Tamil Nadu chief minister.

In a separate resolution against the Tamil Nadu government’s draconian measures, the CITU session unequivocally condemned the Tamil Nadu government for its draconian measures against the employees and teachers during their recent statewide strike.

The Tamil Nadu government had armed itself with a draconian Tamil Nadu Essential Services Maintenance Act (TESMA) 2002 and invoked its stringent provisions to detain over 2300 leaders of the staff and teachers’ unions, at midnight on June 30. The employees were protesting against downsizing and drastic curtailment of pension and other benefits. The government then came up with an ordinance giving itself the summary power of dismissal en masse. In a brazen display of authoritarianism, the government resorted to summary dismissal, without even giving individual notices, of over 2 lakh employees.

The refusal of the Tamil Nadu government to permit the employees to report back to work and the arrogant attitude towards the plea for restoration of normalcy by engaging the unions in talks, all smacked of a high and mighty stance.

AN OMINIOUS PORTENT

In this situation, the pronouncements of the Supreme Court Bench on Tamil Nadu government employees’ strike, as reported in the media, had come as a rude shock, inasmuch as they tantamount to depriving the workers of the country their basic democratic rights. By choosing to term ‘strike’ as ‘the most misused weapon’, the Supreme Court had ignored the ground realities that in the post liberalisation years, it is the employer class in India which had gone on offensive against the workers, as revealed by the overwhelmingly large number of man days lost due to lay offs, lock-outs and closures as against those due to strikes. The CITU asserted that India is a democracy, where right to association is fundamental, which also presupposes right to bargain and the right to strike, in cases where scope for fair bargain are arbitrarily shut. The apex court had proceeded on a premise that administration in Tamil Nadu, as also elsewhere, suffered only when employees resorted to strike and not otherwise. The terms set out by the court for reinstatement of the nearly 2 lakh summarily dismissed employees, are humiliating to say the least. The conditions set out are such that no civil society can countenance. By projecting the Jayalalitha regime’s dealing with the strike as a laudable example for the rest of the country and those in governance, the judiciary had trampled on the hard earned rights of the workers, including those employed in public services. The CITU regretted that the apex court had failed to take note of the stark reality that the employees were lodging their protest over arbitrary encroachments into their pensionary and other benefits.

The CITU held that the judicial pronouncements in the instant case were synonymous with the ‘hire and fire’ regime, which has been the clamour of the employers. The CITU declared that the workers would refuse to silently suffer any intervention in the exercise of their democratic rights. They would reassert their right to strike work, whenever the situation warranted. The resolution once again called upon the trade unions and workers, throughout the country, to rally in support of Tamil Nadu government employees and defeat the atrocious onslaughts unleashed by the Jayalalitha regime there.

Though, on a review petition, the Supreme Court had directed the state government to reinstate the dismissed employees, its verdict constituted an ominous portent not only for the trade unions and labour rights but also for the democratic rights and institutions as well. It is pertinent to note that the state government was still dilly-dallying in implementing the direction, reflecting its vindictive designs.

The CITU, jointly with all central trade unions, will also take initiative to organise a national convention on the right to strike.

ANTI-GLOBALISATION STRUGGLE

The CITU session, after an in-depth review of the May 21 all India strike, decided to launch a vigorous campaign against globalisation and in pursuit of the eight point demands of the entire trade union movement, to culminate in a massive countrywide demonstration on Sep 9, 2003, the date of the Cancun WTO ministerial meeting. Efforts will also be made to evolve joint programmes under the aegis of the sponsoring committee of trade unions and the NPMO, towards higher and long drawn struggles.

The CITU identified few priority areas, where concerted efforts would be made to coordinate the struggles. Energy sector comprising coal mining, oil and natural gas industries and power sector; financial sector comprising banking, insurance and other financial institutions in public and private sectors; transport sector comprising water transport, airlines, railways and road transport; communication sector comprising telecommunication and postal services and the unorganised sector are some of the identified priority areas.

The entire action committee of Nalco unions arrived at the venue of the CITU general council and Sivaji Patnaik introduced them to the meeting amid thunderous cheers. M K Pandhe greeted them on behalf of the CITU and pledged unstinted support to the struggle against privatisation of NALCO. Lalit Patnaik, chairman of the Action Committee thanked the CITU for the support and solidarity extended to the struggles of Nalco workers and officers.

The highlight of the four day session of the CITU was a self critical debate over “combating the offensive of communalism” in the backdrop of the frenzied attempts by the fascistic sangh parivar. The discussion paper, presented by Kanai Banerjee, detailed the disastrous role being played by the communal forces in the country to divide the people of the country, engineer communal riots leading to huge loss of lives, first to gain the political power and then to consolidate it. It also dealt on the socio-political and economic background in which the communal forces had been raising their ugly head. The communal outfits are a palpable threat not only to the unity of the people, the working class and the entire democratic system as such but also for the secular fabric of the Indian society, and thus for the integrity of the multi-religious country like ours. The CITU deliberated on the ways to effectively counter this offensive, with emphasis on the urgent need to intensify educative campaign among the mass of the workers.

Sukumol Sen, general secretary, AISGEF and VAN Namboodiri, general secretary, BSNL Employees Union, Sudhir Kumar, president, FMRAI and S K Dhar, secretary general, All India Loco Running Staff Association, addressed the meeting.

At the commencement of the session, E Balanandan hoisted the CITU  flag and also delivered the presidential address. In his address, Balanandan dealt with the imperialist designs in the aftermath of the Iraq war and called upon the CITU cadre to heighten the anti-imperialist campaign and struggle in the country. He also presented a detailed analysis of the world economic situation today, pointing to the surging tides of resistance to neo-liberal globalisation throughout the world.

The meeting also deliberated on the World Social Forum, 2004, being organised at Mumbai on January 16-21, 2004. It called upon the state committees and affiliated unions of the CITU to actively involve in building up the WSF process throughout the country. It felt that this will strengthen the fight against imperialist globalisation, communalism, religious fanaticism and sectarian violence, casteism, racism, work and descent based discriminations, patriarchy and world peace. The CITU, along with the other central trade unions, had initiated broad based consultations for holding sectoral events like seminars, workshops and conferences on the theme of work and world of labour during the WSF 2004.

Samar Mukherjee, vice president, released the special souvenir of “Shramik Ekta”, the Oriya journal of the CITU state committee. Md. Admin, vice president, CITU, who is also the labour minister of the Left Front government in West Bengal, delivered the concluding address.

ELEVENTH CONFERENCE

The general council also chalked out detailed plans for holding the 11th all India conference of CITU at Chennai on December 9 – 13, 2003. The plans include taking out campaign jathas from different parts of the country, to culminate at the conference venue and holding of seminars and exhibitions in the run up to the conference.  The general council appointed a Resolutions Committee of the 11th conference of CITU comprising Tapan Sen (Convener), K N Ravindranath, Shyamal Chakraborty, A K Padmanabhan and Ch Narasingha Rao.  The general council resolved that the delegation for the 11th conference will be finalised by the CITU secretariat on the basis of one delegate per every 1500 members, as per the annual returns and affiliations fees received by the CITU centre by September 15, 2003. The general council also authorised the CITU secretariat to decide on new affiliation of unions, which will complete all formalities by the same date.

A cheque for Rs 1 lakh was presented on behalf of the West Bengal CITU for assistance to the family of the martyr Ashoke Kumar, leader of the hydel project workers in Himachal Pradesh, who was killed last month by the gangsters engaged by the employer. This amount would also be used for the relief of the families of the workers who were killed in the recent cloudburst in the state.      

The general council granted 77 new unions with a total membership of 19543.