Forward to National Convention on Right to Work

Swadesh Deve Roy

IN persuasion of the decision of the 11th conference of CITU held on December 9-13, 2003 at Chennai a national convention on ‘Right to Work’ has been fixed for March 12-13, 2005 at the Salt Lake Stadium, Kolkata. Around a thousand delegates representing the trade union movement affiliated and friendly to CITU shall participate in the convention, Of course, the leadership of all the fraternal mass orgnisations has been invited for the convention.

The perception of CITU about the role of the working class in the fight against the menace of unemployment with the clear perspective of realising the demand for ‘Right to Work’ can be well traced right in the aims and objectives as enshrined in the constitution of CITU and runs through the policy documents, reports and resolutions and of course as has been prioritised at every initiative of campaign, propaganda, agitation and action unleashed by CITU. Section of 3 (B) (d) of CITU constitution notes, “The CITU fights for security of full employment, right to work and against the hazards of unemployment.”  The resolution on unemployment adopted in the 2nd conference of CITU held in Ernakulam in 1973 noted, “This conference wishes to the working class and the T U movement in the country that the organised workers must champion the cause of right to work”.   

THE DURGAPUR CONVENTION

A landmark initiative of CITU on the subject has been the Durgapur convention on right to work held on April 2-3, 1990.  A total number of 940 delegates took part in the convention. The Durgapur convention shall always continue to inspire the trade union movement of our country in the fight for right to work. The initiative unleashed by CITU with the association and cooperation of the industrial federations in organising the ‘Right to Work’ convention in Durgapur created great enthusiasm and encouragement among the entire trade union movement in the country. The success of the Durgapur convention drew the attention of the central trade union organisations (CTO). In fact the only follow-up convention in New Delhi was attended by other CTOs also. However, unfortunately the initiative could not be carried forward due to various reasons.

It was none other than Comrade B T Ranadive (BTR) who was the main brain behind the decision for the Durgapur convention. From his sickbed Comrade BTR wrote the note titled, ‘Right to Work and Unemployment Problem’ which provided the ideological guidance for the convention. Pointing out the imperative of working class initiative on the fight for right to work BTR wrote, “It is obligatory therefore for the entire working class, employed and unemployed for the destitute rural masses to join hands and throw the strength of millions in the struggle for right to work.” For strengthening the essential need for united struggles he further said, “The trade unions which represent the orgnised strength of the working class must take the lead in organising the campaign of the unemployed workers, rural mass, youth, students and women and take steps to see that a permanent organisation of the unemployed enabling all sections from workers to middle class is created to carry on the battle.”

GLIMPSE OF GLOBAL UNEMPLOYMENT

The worldwide devastating phenomenon of unemployment has been detailed in the Global Employment Trends 2004 published by the ILO. “The number of people out of work and looking for work in 2003, reached 185.9 million, or about 6.2 per cent of the total labour force, the highest unemployment figure ever recorded by the ILO. However, there was a marginal increase over the number for 2002, which the ILO puts at 185.4 million.  Among the world’s unemployed, some 108.1 million were men, up 600,000 from the year 2002.  Among women, there was slight decline, from 77.9 million in 2002, to 77.8 million in 2003.  Hardest hit were some 88.2 million young people aged 15 to 24 who faced a crushing unemployment rate of 14.4 per cent.  Although the so-called “informal economy” continued to increase in countries with low GDP growth rates, the number of “working poor” – or persons living on the equivalent of US$1 per day or less – held steady in 2003, at an estimated 550 million.” 

Colossal increase of unemployment among the youth all over the world has rather sounded the alarm bell. Youth unemployment in the world has increased since 1993 when the unemployment rate for young people was 11.7 per cent.  In 2003 it reached its historical height of 14.4 per cent, leaving 88 million people without work. This was 26.8 per cent more than in 1993.

According to data released by the ILO, unemployment and underemployment continued to rise in the first half of 2003, despite the claim of upturn in the different economies of the world. The following table published in the Global Employment Trends, 2004 shows the percentages of  “unemployment rates by region, 2001-2003

Source: ILO, Global Employment Trends Model  – 2004.

MENACING GROWTH OF UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE COUNTRY

The Fund-Bank dictated successive economic policy regimes in our country have pushed the unemployment problem to a dangerous level of grave social unrest. During the BJP-led NDA government unemployment problem assumed menacing proportion in towns and villages leading to large-scale starvation death including suicides in various states located in different regions of the country. The resultant unrest and resentment amongst the people played crucial role in shaping the verdict in the last general elections.

It is these hard realities and compelling circumstances that forced the UPA regime to incorporate in the CMP (Common Minimum Programme) the commitment to enact national employment guarantee scheme. Thus on the question of employment generation the Common Minimum Programme of the UPA government states that, “The UPA government will immediately enact a National Employment Guarantee Act. This will provide a legal guarantee for at least 100 days of employment, to begin with, on asset creating public works programmes every year at minimum wages for at least one able-bodied person in every rural, urban poor and lower middle-class household.”

But the ardent advocates of Fund-Bank promoted imperialist globalisation and the architects of the neo-liberal economic policies within the UPA government can at best be forced to the pond under the pressure of left political forces but cannot be forced to drink the water. The result is a totally diluted and deceptive Employment Guarantee Bill that has been ultimately tabled in Parliament. A countrywide massive campaign and mobilisation of the masses will have to be organised jointly by the class and mass organisations to mount pressure on the UPA government to suitably amend the Bill to ensure effective and meaningful employment guarantee for all as per the commitment in the CMP.

One of the major factors contributing the menacing growth of unemployment in the country under the neo-liberal regimes is the speedy conversion of our economy from manufacturing to profit hunting captive market of the foreign MNCs; no creation of new jobs in the absence of major investment in green field projects; huge retrenchment of workers due to sickness, closure and merger/acquisition of running industrial concerns; ever increasing rural poverty leading to heavy growth of landless agricultural labourers etc. The trait of the situation is that on one hand lakhs of employed are thrown out of job and on the other hand crores of unemployed are unable to find job. 

 The data on the unemployment pertaining to the liberalisation period depicts the magnitude of the problem in the country. The number of unemployed in India on Current Daily Status Basis (CDS) in 1983 was 21.61 million and reduced to 19.58 million in 1993-94. But with the onset of the devastating effect of the new economic policies the unemployed figure again started growing and reached to a record high level of 26.44 million in 1999-2000. So far as the break-up of unemployment in rural and urban areas is concerned, in 1983 the rural unemployment was 16.18 million and came down to 14.3 million in 1993-94 but increased to 19.31 million in 1999-2000. The share of urban unemployment was 5.4 million in 1983, increased to 5.94 million in 1993-94 and further increased to 7.12 million in 1999-2000.

The national annual growth rate of unemployment during 1983 to 1993-94 was rather low, which rose to 4.55 per cent during 1993-04 to 1990-2000, thanks to the employment regressive neo-liberal economic policies. Here again the rural and urban break up was revealing.  The growth rate of rural unemployment in 1993-94 to 1999-2000 was 5.13 per cent. On the other hand the growth rate of urban unemployment during the period 1983 to 1993-94 was 0.85 per cent and increased to 3.76 per cent during the period 1993-94 to 1999-2000. (The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, January-March, 2003)

THE FDI FALLACY

Years back Comrade BTR wrote, “The policy of disbandment of public sector and reckless privatisation and encouragement of multinationals to enter the Indian market is fraught with the gravest danger for the employment situation. They offer a challenge to the T U movement, which must accept it.”

The hollowness of government propaganda that more and more FDI inflow by itself shall contribute to economic development and generate employment has obviously been proved wrong. The fierce competition amongst the developing countries to attract FDI and the huge concessions granted to the multinational companies by the developing countries have been strongly decried by the ILO. The director general of the ILO has said, “Since 1998, 103 countries have offered tax concessions to foreign corporations. There is growing concern that an incentives war to attract highly mobile foreign investors able to switch production easily between countries could lead to a race to the bottom with respect to fiscal competition and environment or labour standards.”

The international operators of FDI – the MNCs – in effect neither bring much of ‘Foreign Capital’ nor generate employment in the country concerned. On the contrary the MNCs suck indigenous capital and kill employment. Based on the various studies on the role of MNCs in the economies of the developing countries in respect of investment and employment it has been said, “The import of capital was much less than the yearly exports of profits and royalties; further investment was financed through capital drawn from the local capital market and from reinvestment of profits …  No impulse was given to solution of the unemployment. The IMF itself has admitted that the imperialist globalisation is increasing unemployment. The IMF study  (Slaughter and Swagel – 1997) noted, “ globalisation has coincided with higher unemployment.” 

Therefore it is evident that FDI is net jobs killer. The main reasons are 75 per cent of the total actual FDI comes for merger and acquisition. Since 1993-94 in our country there has been around 300 cases of merger-acquisitions (M&A). It is a well-known fact that M&A leads to undertakes retrenchment of workers on account of closure of departments, introduction of ultra modern technology, integration of different operational activities, induction of small number of highly skilled workers against huge retrenchment of the existing workers etc.

BUSINESS PROCESS OUTSOURCING

Business Process Outsourcing  (BPO) started in the 1990s with low-end labour-intensive services such as data entry, medical transcription and simple call centres functions. Now BPO has engulfed the “sophisticated IT-enabled services which include engineering, financial research, payroll and accounting services, insurance claims processing, tech-support for R&D operations, chip design, telemarketing and of course the software services.” The BPO is really affecting the working class in both the country from which outsourcing is done and the country to which is outsourced. It adversely affects the question of stable and decent employment and emolument.  

The BPO has become a means of exploitation of the working class.  A study by Inductis, a management consulting firm has said that, “American companies save billions of dollars each year by outsourcing of work to India. The US banking industry alone saved $8 billion over the past four years by outsourcing work to India. Also, the US-based multinational companies have been the biggest beneficiaries of offshore outsourcing economies. For instance, G E alone saves over $350 million per year through 18,000 offshore employees. (Business Line 19.4.03) To cite an example of the wage differential in the US and India it has been said that “engineers in India earn about $5,000 to $10,000 compared with at least $50,000 in the US.” (Financial Express 15.7.03)  

THE CORE PREMISE

The forthcoming Kolkata convention on Right to Work is an exercise based on the perception and the persuasion of the policy of CITU as already noted above. The documents, deliberations and conclusions of the Commission exercises on   unemployment conducted in the 10th and 11th conference of CITU shall obviously be important source of input in the coming convention. In this connection it would be worth mentioning that the declaration adopted at the all India convention on “Right to Work” held at Durgapur noted: “It should be a common campaign of all sects of people, employed and unemployed workers of the cities, the villages and also the students, youth and the women folk.  It should also be the task of the trade unions representing the organised strength of the working class to lead in organising the campaign of the unemployed workers, rural mass, youth and women.” 

The basic premise that no lasting solution to this problem is possible without changing the social order can be the core consideration in drawing the concluding call of the convention. That the root of the problem of unemployment rests in the capitalist economy has time and again been proved with the aggravation of unemployment situation in conjunction with the emergence of the recurring crisis in capitalist economies. The sole motive of capitalist mode of production is to maximise profit. The capitalist system operates to utilise the capacities and other factors of production including labour to the extent they maximise profit. In stagnated market situation, in their pursuit to protect profit the capitalists always employ steps to reduce cost of production mainly by curtailing manpower and labour cost through various anti-labour methods including retrenchment, re-deployment and simultaneously imposing ban on new recruitment.

The struggles to achieve right to work cannot be separated from the struggle for reorientation of the economic and social policies towards socialist transformation. In the words of Comrade BTR, “There can be no right to work … unless a new land reform overhauls the agrarian property relations … and if means of production are allowed to be run by private owners with their inalienable right to hire and fire” However pending realisation of the ultimate goal, prescribing the need and prospect for immediate relief BTR wrote, “There must be agitation for immediate measures to increase the number of jobs, to curtail the power of the employers regarding hiring and firing and schemes for employment expansion of jobs and employment relief for those who are unable to secure work.”

NEED FOR MASSIVE UNITED MOVEMENT

The fight against unemployment obviously has greater social dimensions. Unemployed youth are easily pushed to the gangs of the criminals. Mafia gangs use the unemployed to carry out their anti-social criminal activities. Huge unemployed youth have become the source of recruitment for outfits pursuing terrorism, communalism, parochialism, provincialism etc. Thus unemployment directly affects mainly that section of the people, which has immense capability to greatly influence the course of national events in the country, at the same time this issue has tremendous cascading effect on the overwhelming majority of the population of the country. Therefore, the struggles against unemployment can be a rallying point to unite all sections of the democratic and downtrodden people.

At the same time, since the root of this evil lie with capitalism and its current phase of imperialist globalisation is the major cause of aggravation of the problem, an effective peoples’ movement, pioneered by the working class, to combat the atrocious social evil, can eventually throw effective challenge to the capitalist social order itself. While delivering the concluding speech at the CITU conference in Bombay in 1975 Comrade BTR said, “Unemployment cannot be fought factory by factory … it has to be gradually developed into a general struggle of the class. Wider and wider struggles against the economic policies from which the unemployment flows is necessary.”

The Kolkata convention is taking place a decade and half after the Durgapur convention took place. Of course, during the intervening period the commission exercises in the last two conferences of CITU were significant initiatives on the subject. Therefore, this convention can be viewed as the continuation and also the culmination of the past initiatives.

A very significant coinciding feature before the Durgapur convention and also the forthcoming Kolkata convention is that the former had before it the election manifesto of the then Janata Dal government promising to grant right to work as fundamental right in the Constitution and now the forthcoming convention has before it the CMP commitment of the UPA government on employment guarantee. In between the common minimum programme of the then United Front government also committed to make this a fundamental right. These repeated commitments actually provide evidence to the heightening influence of the ever-growing problem of unemployment on the socio-political course of our country. At the same time experience has clearly proved that real guarantee for right to work does not lie on paper commitment but on commitment of the people to carry forward united mass movement to realise right to work as fundamental right. Let the past experience and present reality guide the Kolkata convention to decide the future course of united long drawn continuos struggles to translate the paper commitment into practice.