Frenzied Reaction To September 29 Strike: Whom Do They Serve?

Prakash Karat

A STRIKING feature of the reactions to the September 29 general strike has been a strong and often vituperative attack on the CPI(M) and the Left.  It was expected that the corporate-owned media would disapprove of the workers’ action and write the usual editorials about the irresponsibility of the trade unions and how the economy suffers as a result.  What is new is the offensive mounted against the Left parties and the strident tone of the demand that such strikes be stopped.

The Left parties were accused of holding the country to ransom.  Worse, they were accused of political immorality for seeking to blackmail the government while supporting it. Most of the editorial comments assumed that the central trade unions had gone on strike at the dictate of the CPI(M) and the Left parties. Some of the more rightwing papers have charged the prime minister and the government of being weak for failing to deal with the strike firmly. 

What is common in this diatribe against the September 29 strike is the assumption that strikes are anti-national and anti-people. The CPI(M) has been accused  of “political obscenity” for inflicting the strike on the country.  Another commentator has called it “a perverse day long disruption”. The Hindustan Times editorialised that “the Left remains oblivious to the possibility that workers and managers can work in a civilised, symbiotic manner”. This is rather rich coming from a management which has summarily dismissed 362 workers last year and is forcing its journalists to resign and sign short-term contracts.

A senior journalist, Inder Malhotra writing in The Indian Express, while vociferously condemning  the strike, declared that “privatisation is an essential element  in effective economic policy”. The editorial in the same paper while calling the strike “an ugly show of strength of the Left parties” bemoaned that “privatisation, an essential part of economic reforms is off the agenda”.  Much of the anger directed at the strike was precisely due to the fact that millions of workers and employees protested against the privatisation policy.  None of the big business media asked the question why 40 million people went on strike? They did not do so because the Left parties had decided that a general strike should be held.

WHY THE WORKERS WENT ON STRIKE?

For the first time, the Airport Authority employees all over the country went on strike to protest against the government’s decision to privatise the Mumbai and Delhi airports. They resorted to the strike action because, unlike what Inder Malhotra states, the government has refused to consider the modernisation plan submitted by the Airport Authority employees. 

The media and the  editorials have not asked why the state government employees numbering millions went on strike in states where the Left has no influence on their unions? They did so because a Supreme Court  judgement has sought to deprive them of the right to strike – a right they are not willing to give up. 

None in the media have noted that many trader’s associations in states like Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh joined the strike because they are upset about the government’s proposal to bring in FDI in the retail trade. A large number of peasants and agricultural workers conducted their own protest actions on that day because they apprehend further erosion in their livelihood and rights of farmers in the forthcoming WTO negotiations. 

Large numbers of unorganised  sector  workers  joined the strike because in the wretched  conditions they work in, they are more desperate and willing than better-paid workers to forgo  a day’s wage to demand that  they get a better deal. 

The reality is that the  September 29 strike drew in a large section of people  who are neither organised in the trade unions which gave the  strike call  nor are they followers of the Left parties. 

STEADY RESISTANCE TO LIBERALISATION

So, to rail against the strike as the Left’s “Pavlovian response” and terming it “one of the biggest exercises in political hypocrisy in recent years” is to miss the whole point.   The UPA government faced its first general strike after being 16 months in office.  For a year, the trade unions and the working class movement waited to see whether the government would implement policies which would mark a break from the pernicious anti-working class policies of the BJP-led government.    While a few desultory steps were taken, by and large, the policies of liberalisation and privatisation continues.  In a period when corporate profits have been rapidly climbing, the rights and benefits of the working class are being whittled down. 

Overall, the liberalisation-privatisation drive for the past one and a half decades has met with steady resistance from the working class.  Between 1992 and 2005, in a phase of thirteen years, there have been ten general strikes in the country apart from  major industrywise and sectorwise struggles.   It is this dogged resistance which  prevented, to some extent, the indiscriminate drive for privatisation and the imposition of neo-liberal reforms.  However, liberalisation has created a climate where both Indian big business and international finance capital are aggressively pushing for curtailing the rights of trade unions and disciplining  the working force.  This is an inevitable result of the State ceding its responsibilities to protect the  welfare of labour which was a stated aim of earlier times. 

In the current ethos of liberalisation, it is not just the government which embraces the logic of neo-liberal reforms but also the judiciary and other institutions of the State.   What the government has, at times, hesitated to do because of fear of popular retribution, the higher judiciary has willingly  taken up.   Banning of bandhs, hartals and restrictions on strikes, protest  demonstrations and rallies have become common  forms of judicial intervention.  What the mainstream media is  reflecting is this intolerance and  pathological fear of  working class actions and mass protests. In this, they are reflecting, whether it be the print media or the  television channels, the class outlook of the corporate houses and the big  business which owns them. 

A COMMON PHENOMENON

Contrary to the media  portrayal that the general strike is a Leftist  aberration and the result of a political feud with the UPA government, a look around the world will show that general strike actions are a common phenomenon.  In the last 12 months, several major general strikes have taken place.  Some instances can be given:

•  In Italy, a general strike paralysed the country on November 30, 2004.  The strike was called by the three trade union confederations to protest against the Berlusconi government’s economic and financial policies. 

• In South Africa, more than two million workers participated in the general strike on June 27, 2005 called by the COSATU, the main trade union confederation.  The strike was called to protest against continuing job losses, high rates of unemployment and poverty.   

• In Greece, a 24-hour general strike  on July 26, 2005 evoked massive participation.  Called by the Greek trade union confederation, the GSEE, a million workers struck work against the government’s move to introduce more “flexible” working hours and changes in the payment for overtime work.

• In France, there was a huge general strike  on October 4, 2005 – four days after India’s general strike.  The strike paralysed transportation and was called in protest against privatisation, new changes to the labour laws and  allowing small firms to hire and fire  workers at will.  In more than 150 locations, hundreds of thousands marched on that day in support of their demands.   

• Three days later, in Belgium, on October 7, the first general strike in twelve years completely paralysed the country.  The strike affected transportation, school, government offices, shops and other industrial sector.

• In South Korea, on  April 1, 2005,  231 unions involving 1,68,000 workers participated in a four-hour  warning general strike protesting the  use of temporary workers and in support of their rights.

There have been many such strike struggles in other countries. Many of the issues raised in the September 29 general strike are similar to the causes for the strikes in other countries. They include job losses, cuts in pension benefits and  changes in labour laws. 

It is an insult to the workers, the government employees and the working people of the country to brand the strike action, in which millions participated, as a political strong-arm tactic of the CPI(M) and the Left to settle scores with the UPA government. 

No amount of vilification will deter the CPI(M) from standing firmly with the working class and  the other sections of the working people in their struggle for a better life.   The working people will rebuff all attempts to put restrictions on the right to protest and the right to strike.   The dominant media is bordering on advocating  authoritarian measures to suppress strikes in the name of national interests while  actually all they are doing is defending the interests of big capital.  This is dangerous for our democratic system.  It would be better for the ruling circles to understand the message that was conveyed through this significant protest action.