People's Democracy

18TH CONGRESS RESOLUTION

On Working Class Struggles

THE 18th congress of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) notes with concern the increasing onslaught on the rights and livelihood of working class. The institutio-nalisation of the attack on labour rights is one of the pillars on which the second generation reform seeks to rest on.

The right to strike is being denied by the retrograde judgement of the Supreme Court even if the demands of the workers are just. Despite united demand of the trade unions to enact a law to ensure this right, it is not being accepted by the Government of India. This blatant attack on the fundamental right of the working class was resolutely opposed by the working class by organising one day strike action all over India.

The exercise on downsizing of manpower led by the governments itself has encouraged the private sector to resorting to contractorisation and casualisation. The process of employment-degeneration thus set on by the neo-liberal policy regime has affected not only the employment prospect of vast section of unemployed, including fresh jobseekers but also acted upon severely on the job-security of those already in the jobs. The central government decided to reduce manpower in the government departments at the rate of 2 per cent every year since 2002 which means 66,000 job losses every year. Most of the state governments and central PSUs followed suit. While lakhs of vacant posts are not filled in, there is ban on fresh recruitment in central services. In the span of last four years, more than 7 lakh workers have lost their jobs in the organised sector itself.

The proliferation of mass scale contractorisation and casualisation of workforce and reckless outsourcing is another dimension of the attack on the working class. The incidents of wholesale outsourcing of the entire production job to number of contractors and the principal employer converting himself from manufacturing to trading activities are also becoming regular practice in the business world. This has also led to aggravation of the phenomenon of decentralised workplace, with alarming increase of home-based working by predominantly women workers with extremely low and fluctuating earnings and no social security benefits and trade union rights. This phenomenon is putting downward pressure on the general wage level as well. The entire employment relationship is being sought to be redefined in the workplace to inject more and more fragility and curbing trade union activities.

Precisely, in this background, the active exercise is on to dismantle and overhaul the labour laws. This exercise is being supplemented by large scale non-enforcement of the existing labour laws in respect of wages, social security, safety, compensation, working hours — practically all facets of working conditions. This phenomenon of non-enforcement of labour laws is not just administrative default, but is being deliberately promoted by those in governance through dismantling of labour-inspectorates, drastic weakening of the enforcement machineries including the tribunals etc and curbing trade union rights. In general, more than 50 per cent of the workforce, covered by Minimum Wages Act are not getting wages anywhere near the statutory level in vogue in the respective states. The applications for registration of trade unions in various sectors through out the country have been gathering dust for years only because the industry owners’ association have opposed the same. In fact, overwhelming majority of the ongoing labour related disputes in our country relate to just implementation of existing labour laws pertaining to working hours, minimum wages, basic rights and nothing more. Irony is that, in such a background of desperate violations of labour laws by the employers, the employers in many of the industrial and services sectors throughout the country are being liberally allowed the right to self-certification on labour law compliance without any concrete provision/ mechanism to cross check.

And this became the prelude to the hectic exercise for change in labour laws aimed at legitimising the rights of the employers to ‘hire and fire at will’ and contractorise and casualise the workforce through amendment of Industrial Disputes Act, Contract Labour Act, Factories Act, Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act etc. Already the NDA government tried to introduce "fixed term employment" through executive notification just before the last general elections, which, of course, had to be ultimately withdrawn by the UPA government owing to pressure of the trade union movement and the Left parties. The desire for introducing policy for "entry and exit" as expressed by the Economic Survey and loud talks regarding proliferation of Special Economic Zones countrywide with immunity from application of all labour laws are testimonies to enslave labour force and also to disarm the trade union movement.

The social security spending in India is a mere 1.5 per cent of GDP which is lowest even among the developing countries. Hectic exercise is on to abdicate government’s responsibility even in providing such minimal social security. The inaction of the government in respect of bringing comprehensive legislation for the unorganised sector and agricultural sector workers, changing the pension scheme for the new entrants in central government services as a contributory measure, consistent decline in the interest rates on provident fund of the workers and employees including Public Provident Fund and small savings, to create condition for social security savings of the people to be pushed towards stock market, promulgation of Pension Fund Regulatory & Development Authority (PFRDA) Ordinance and inviting foreign investment in the pension sector are all indications of such retrograde approach.

In this background, the period since 17th congress witnessed numerous struggles by the working class countrywide. Two nationwide general strikes against the neo-liberal policies and attack on labour rights have taken place, besides many sectoral strike actions and agitations in banks, insurance, postal, petroleum, hydel projects and various other industries mostly directed against the grievous fallout of the ongoing economic policy regime. In the unorganised sector, various struggles, including long-drawn strikes, took place throughout the country covering the weaker states also, and in most of the cases workers had to carry forward the struggle braving brutal police atrocities, imprisonment, etc. The public sector workers had also to go for a nationwide strike action opposing the policies of privatisation and liberalisation. The 18th congress warmly congratulates the working class of India for these massive actions and expresses its firm solidarity with their legitimate struggles.

The 18th congress notes that the attack on the working class would continue to mount in various forms and thus the congress calls upon the movement of the toiling people in general to unitedly combat such sinister offensive on the working class through countrywide mobilisation and struggles.