CITU’S MAY DAY MANIFESTO - 2005

THE Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) extends revolutionary greetings to the working class fraternity all over the world, on the historic May Day – the day of the international solidarity of the working people!

The CITU greets the working class and the people of the socialist countries for steadfastly holding aloft the banner of socialism!

The CITU greets the working class and the people of the advanced capitalist countries, who have raised the banner of resistance to the policies of imperialist globalisation, putting up inspiring and militant struggles against capitalism.

The CITU warmly greets and pledges solidarity with the working people of the developing countries, engaged in fighting back the offensives of imperialism on the one hand and the onslaughts of the ruling classes on the other.

FIGHT IMPERIALISM

The US imperialists, aided and abetted by the Tony Blair regime of the UK, continue their occupation of Iraq, defying overwhelming worldwide public opinion and growing dissent even from within their own countries. The aggression against and occupation of Iraq has not only devastated that country but also resulted in the killing of more than 150, 000 Iraqis. The growing resistance to the occupation armies, put up by all sections of the people in Iraq, has already inflicted immense casualties for the US troops and exposed the illegitimacy of its occupation. The US led war-coalition has also suffered a setback with several countries withdrawing their troops from Iraq. The puppet regime propped up by the imperialists and the new coalition forged after the farcical elections there have no popular support from the people of Iraq. This brazen act of aggression is utilised by the US administration to corner the oil wealth of Iraq and to consolidate the global hegemony of US imperialism. The CITU demands immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the US-led occupying forces from Iraq and release of all Iraqi prisoners. The CITU pledges its solidarity with the Iraqi people.

In West Asia, the US imperialism has acquiesced in the Israeli onslaughts against the Palestinians, where the Ariel Sharon regime persists with its illegal settlements on Palestinian soil and the Apartheid Wall cutting off the Palestinian people from each other.  Together, they seek to impose an unjust settlement of the Palestinian question against the will of its people. The CITU demands an immediate end to the illegal Israeli occupation in Palestine and pledges its solidarity with the people of Palestine in their struggle to establish a sovereign Palestine state.

The US has also targeted countries like Syria, Iran, North Korea etc. for its further offensives, which it seeks to further step up in the coming period.

The CITU calls upon the working people of the country to carry on a sustained anti-war campaign within India and also join forces fighting against imperialist war machinations across the globe.

STRUGGLE AGAINST NEO-LIBERAL POLICIES

The imperialist dominated international financial and trade institutions viz the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation have concertedly moved to impose on the countries of the third world the agenda of liberalisation and globalisation, the disastrous effects of which are being increasingly witnessed by the people. This imperialist onslaught on the economic front is taking place alongside its aggressive militarist interventions throughout the globe. Though resistance to these imperialist offensives are gathering strength in all parts of the world, there are attempts to blunt the edge of this growing resistance by promoting the concept of TINA (There Is No Alternative to this imperialist globalisation.) This is nothing but a plea to reconcile with the neo-liberal policy regime. Carrying on a sustained struggle against these imperialist offensives, by mobilising broadest possible sections of the masses is a primary task before the working class in India.

But, much as the pro-reforms lobby would like the world to believe that ‘There Is No Alternative’ to the imperialist driven neo-liberal globalisation, people across the globe are rallying en-masse in resistance struggles. Militant protests, participated in huge numbers, had refuted the inevitability of the so-called economic reforms, dictated by the Brettonwood institutions. 

The successive editions of the ‘World Social Forum’ in India during 2004 and latest in Porto Alegre this year, as also its European and Asian editions, held every year, had emphatically declared that ‘Another World is Possible’ and that ‘Socialism Is The Alternative’. 

Internationally, the movement against the neo-liberal globalisation is increasingly coming out vehemently against the move to impose further adverse terms on the developing countries commencing from the Doha round of the WTO ministerial meeting.

Multinational corporations use the World Trade Organisation (WTO), together with a proliferation of regional and bilateral trade agreements, to promote their interests. They dominate and control our economies and impose a development model, which impoverishes our societies. In the name of trade liberalisation, every aspect of life and nature is thrown for sale and people are denied their basic rights. The developing countries, including ours, are trapped in a never-ending cycle of debt that forces them to open up their markets and export their wealth.

Worldwide campaign to stop and reverse liberalisation of agriculture, water, energy, public services and investment, and to reassert peoples sovereignty over their societies, their resources, their cultures and knowledge and their economies are growing in strength.

The CITU calls upon the working class to intensify the struggle against all aspects of the pursuit of the neo-liberal economic policies in the country and its disastrous impact on the people in the form of deepening poverty, aggravating unemployment, growing joblosses etc. It calls upon the trade union movement to mobilise and rally the people in building up a countrywide movement for right to work to be enshrined as fundamental right.

The CITU exhorts the working class and other sections of the toiling people to rally together to further heighten the struggle against the global economic domination of imperialism being carried out through the WTO, World Bank the IMF and build up a global unity against globalisation!

REVERSE ANTI-PEOPLE ECONOMIC POLICIES

In India, the UPA government is now in office at the centre, after the defeat of the BJP-led NDA government in the general elections held last year. This UPA regime, which is dependent on the Left parties for its continuance in office had to adopt a “National Common Minimum Programme”, incorporating some positive measures for the benefit of the people.

But, we have witnessed during the past eleven months of the UPA governance that it has been exhibiting a lukewarm attitude on implementation of the pro-people measures contained in the CMP. It also seeks to pursue the disastrous policies of economic reforms, which had during the earlier NDA regime derailed the entire economy. The same policies of levying users’ charges, of withdrawing subsidies, of resorting to backdoor privatisation through disinvestments, which were decisively rejected by the people are being pushed through. The same attempts to follow the mirage of development through foreign investment and to bend backwards to appease the multinational corporations continue. It is by now well established that this paradigm of jobless growth has only led to widening disparities and increasing destitution to larger and larger sections of the people. The third amendment to the Patents Act through the ordinance route ignoring the interests of our own industry, agriculture and the people, had to some extent been checkmated as the government had to incorporate several significant amendments before passage of the bill in parliament. The decision to increase FDI in banks, insurance, telecom and civil aviation, green signal to the private airliners to operate international flights, privatise airports etc. testify to the persisting tendency of the Congress-led UPA government to succumb to the pressures of the big business lobby, both domestic and foreign.

The government has not yet initiated any move to annul the pernicious impact of the Supreme Court order against the right to strike of the workers and government employees, despite repeated demands from the entire spectrum of trade union movement. On the other hand, the Economic Survey has talked of removing ‘labour market rigidities’, ‘entry and exit barriers’ etc. reviving the cry for labour law changes to the detriment of workers’ interests.

In the current budget, FDI in mining, trade and pension sectors have been indicated, which again has serious implications for the economy and the people of the country. Despite the announcement to restore the interest rate on Employees’ Provident Fund to 9.5 per cent, it is yet to be translated into tangible action. Besides, the government has also introduced the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Bill in the Lok Sabha, to validate the ordinance that was promulgated earlier. Though the Bill now stands referred to the standing committee, moves are afoot to push the same through in haste. Thus, the threat of privatisation of pension and diversion of the fund to stock market still looms large.

In the face of all these nefarious moves and deceptive designs, the country has witnessed a series of actions by the working class. The CITU calls upon the trade union movement to surge ahead in a united manner to build up a powerful popular resistance to reverse the anti-people economic policies.

FIGHT COMMUNAL, CASTEIST FORCES & BUILD CLASS UNITY

In India, the working class encounters yet another stiff challenge – that of fighting the growing offensives of communal forces.  At a time when the working class is mandated to intensify its struggles against the imperialist spearheaded disastrous economic policies of successive governments at the centre, the working class has to fight hard the systematic build up of communal war hysteria and root out the communal venom, which poses the gravest threat to communal harmony and national unity. The working class can ill afford to forget the horrendous communal orgy that had shocked the country, first in the Godhra killings and next by the genocide inflicted on the minorities in Gujarat, by the barbaric Narendra Modi regime, which has been a high point of the criminal offensive of the right-wing hindutva forces. After six years of leading the government at the centre, the political party of the sangh parivar and their allies were decisively trounced in the general elections last year. Yet, the working class should not lose sight of the immense potential of the hindutva forces to revive their agenda and damage the secular fabric of the Indian society. The working class has to be ever vigilant over the overt and covert moves of the communal forces; it must constantly struggle to isolate these forces and preserve people’s unity.

The workers belonging to religious minority communities are under a twin attack. They face the communal violence let loose against them by the fanatic majoritarian outfits of the sangh parivar; they also fall prey to the divisive appeals by minority fundamentalist groups, which try to keep them away from the general democratic movement. The working class must win over these sections, by fully defending their interests and drawing them into the mainstream struggles.

Yet another threat that looms large before the working class of India is the ever-increasing attempts by the casteist forces to divide the working people on caste lines, seeking to achieve political clout through caste appeals. The working class must take note of the peculiarity of the Indian society where unmitigated social oppression continues along with class exploitation. The most impoverished and highly oppressed sections of the caste divided Indian society are the rural poor, whose fight against landlord domination and feudal oppression must be joined by the working class. It must, in all seriousness, take up the fight to end caste oppression and eradicate untouchablity.  

Women in India have been the worst victims of both the communal and economic offensives. Atrocities and discrimination against women have increased alarmingly. Sexual abuse and vulgar commercialisation of women as part of fast spreading consumerist culture have all added to their agonies. The women workers face job losses, suffer inequality in wages and service conditions and work in most unsafe environments. The working class must take up the issues of women’s empowerment and fight against the manifold oppression and atrocities they are subjected to.

The building up of class unity to take on these immense challenges is a formidable task before the working class movement in the country. The reformist trends within the trade union movement constantly strives to keep the working class struggles within the confines of economic demands and on several occasions advocates unprincipled compromises. They also create illusions among sections of the workers that economic reforms with a ‘human face’ are achievable and that is what must be sought for. While attempting to forge broadest unity of the class and mass organisations for unleashing powerful struggles against the multi-pronged offensives being faced today, the working class movement must also carry on the ideological struggle against all types of vacillations and class collaboration.

STENGTHEN UNITY

On this May Day, the CITU exhorts the working people of the country to further strengthen and consolidate the unity of all the toiling masses and unleash further powerful struggles against the imperialist offensives, onslaughts of the ruling classes, the ruinous economic policies and against the divisive and disruptive forces of communalism and casteism.

Let us march forward to defend the interests of our great country and its people!

Long live working class unity!

Long live international solidarity of the working class!

Down with imperialism!

Long live socialism!