People's Democracy

Bengal Observes May Day

MEETINGS and processions throughout the state of Bengal marked the May Day.  A central rally held at the Shahid Minar maidan in Kolkata saw a big participation by workers and employees.

The principal speaker at this central rally was veteran CITU leader and former Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu who called for a further strengthening of the movement of the workers-employees throughout the country.

Chastising the votaries of globalisation, Jyoti Basu said that the gulf between the rich and the poor grew everyday, unemployment increased rapidly, and millions of people sank under the poverty line.

Jyoti Basu chastised the Congress-led UPA government for following the dictates of the IMF, the World Bank, and of the MNC’s in fashioning its economic priorities. The speaker explained to say that the Left supported the UPA government to prevent the communal BJP from making a comeback.

Turning to the electoral scene in Bengal, Jyoti Basu said that what would ensure a triumph of the Left Front was the support and affection of the people. Basu pointed out that the workers must look to productivity and production and must not allow the management to have the last word here.

The management on the other hand must be in dialogue with the workers to facilitate the resolution of all impasses.  The Left Front government would step in through tripartite meetings if problems persisted.  If nothing came out finally, the workers had the right to resort to the final weapon of strike. The Left Front government would never send forth the police to break up strikes.

During the Congress regime, Jyoti Basu pointed out, workers and employees would be sent to jail.  In contrast, the Left Front government has provided the worker-employees with the right to strike.  Basu criticised the Tamilnadu government for using brutal measures against striking employees.

Other speakers included Mohd Amin and Kali Ghosh (CITU), Chunilal Dasgupta (12th July committee), Ranjit Guha (AITUC), Saral Deb (TUCC), and Ashok Ghosh (UTUC).

Writing in the Ganashakti in the May Day supplement, Jyoti Basu said that the working class movement must be founded on the correct ideological base to make headway.  Experience, wrote Basu, would show that that the flexibility of the labour market would cause great harm to the workers in terms of wages and employment.

The TU’s must come boldly forward, wrote Basu, to criticise and refute the anti-people tenets that were set up to support the need for the labour market to be flexible.  This is one of the challenges before the working class, concluded Basu, on the May Day. (B P)