People's Democracy

 Employees, Teachers To Go On Nationwide Strike

ON July 8, the All India State Government Employees’ Federation, the Confederation of Central Government Employees & Workers, the All India Federation of University & College Teachers Organisations (AIFUCTO) and the School Teachers Federation of India (STFI) held a national convention in New Delhi. The convention unanimously adopted a declaration that talked of a two-hour walk-out demonstration during the monsoon session of parliament against the pension bill.

This convention of state government employees, central government employees and teachers noted with grave concern that the UPA government is increasingly following a very harmful policy towards the workers, employees and rural poor of the country.

The convention also noted with deep anguish that the government of India has taken a most regressive attitude towards the justified demand of employees, which concerns a fundamental right --- the right to strike. This is so despite the fact that on February 24, 2004, the biggest ever working class strike in India took place against the Supreme Court ruling that denied this right to government employees, and an unprecedented 4 crore people had signed a mass petition that was submitted to the parliament on December 7, 2004. The demand was that the government must take concrete steps to ensure the right to strike to the employees, and there was a wide public support for this demand.

Still more surprising is the fact that even after some members of parliament raised the issue on the floor of the house and the Lok Sabha speaker referred the matter to the ministers concerned, the government refused to accept the right to strike. Its plea was “ironic” --- that the government employees are highly protected, have enough scope for negotiation with the government and so the right to strike is not necessary. Moreover, in regard to the ILO conventions 87, 98, 151 and 154, the government simply dismissed the issue by saying that ratification of these conventions is not possible “in Indian conditions.”

It was in such an extremely agonising situation that employees and teachers find no other alternative but to continue and intensify the movement for the right to strike.

Meanwhile, the government has launched a vicious economic offensive on its employees and teachers by issuing an ordinance to privatise the age-old statutory pension scheme for government employees. Now the Pension Regulatory and Development Bill, drafted for this purpose, is under discussion in the parliament.

The convention termed this pernicious bill as “drafted in faithful obedience of the IMF-World Bank dictates on pension reforms in India,” adding that it is designed to deprive the employees of their biggest social security benefit. Moreover, this would also deprive an employee’s family members of their entitlement to family pension after the former’s demise.

Privatisation of pension scheme for the new recruits have already been introduced by executive order of the government of India from April 1, 2004, followed by similar orders by 7 state governments for state employees and teachers. This is alarming for the serving as well as retired employees. For, the government’s argument that employees are living longer and so the government is financially hard-pressed to bear the burden of pensionary liabilities, practically means that the government wants to come out of pension liabilities by somehow stopping the pension of existing employees and pensioners. Started with the new recruits, it is thus a device to ultimately snatch away the pension of the working and retired employees also. This will create a dangerous situation and employees cannot remain silent or complacent over it. Moreover, though the employees in bank, insurance and other sectors, who are covered by some sort of pension scheme at present, remain untouched, ultimately they too would be affected by the move.

The convention noted that the USA, UK and some European governments have raised an alarm over the pension liabilities, and now the government of India has also joined that bandwagon by trying to frighten the people with an illusory pension fund crisis.

But, the convention warned, employees and workers are militantly resisting this scheme in Europe and America by several means, including national level strikes, as this is a big attack through the World Bank-IMF mechanism.

Besides, the employees are also being attacked through privatisation, downsizing, contractual appointments etc. Lakhs of vacant posts are being kept unfilled, denying jobs to the youth.

In this situation, the convention made the following demands:

1. Immediate grant of right to strike either by a parliamentary enactment or ratification of the relevant ILO conventions. Scrapping of the colonial-era anti-employee conduct rules for government servants.

2. Stop to privatisation of pension of government employees and repeal of the Pension Regulatory Authority Ordinance 2004 altogether.

3. Stop to privatisation, downsizing and outsourcing of government departments and activities; total stop to fixed pay and fixed tenure contractual appointments of employees and teachers.

4. Filling up of several lakhs of vacant posts in state government and central government departments so that lakhs of jobless youth get jobs and people get better service from the government.

5. Raising of interest rate on GPF from the present 8 to earlier 12 per cent.

The convention also endorsed the demands raised by the Sponsoring Committee of the Trade Unions concerning the entire working class and the rural poor.

The convention was strongly of the opinion that considering the adamant anti-worker attitude of the government, it was imperative to build up a militant and countrywide movement so as to bring heavy pressure on the government for a speedy settlement of the above urgent demands. Hence the convention decided to launch a countrywide campaign through state and zonal level conventions, rallies, group meetings, seminars, etc to educate and prepare employees for the struggle. This would be followed by a nationwide strike on these issues soon. (INN)