People's Democracy

AICCWW To Hold Eighth National Convention

K Hemalata

THE CITU has decided to hold the eighth national convention of the All India Coordination Committee of Working Women in Visakhapatnam on November 3-5, 2006. Around 500 workingwomen delegates from all over the country and covering various industries and sectors - handloom workers from Tripura, tea plantation workers from Assam, anganwadi employees from Himachal Pradesh, cashew and coir workers from Kerala, coffee plantation workers from Karnataka, domestic workers from Maharashtra, fishery workers from Tamil Nadu, iron ore mine workers from Orissa, beedi workers from Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, industrial workers from Delhi, brick kiln workers from Haryana and Rajasthan, Self Help Group members from Punjab, home based workers from West Bengal and the SEZ workers from Andhra Pradesh apart from others will participate in this convention.

The convention is being held as part of the 12th conference of the CITU that is to be held in Bangalore on January 17- 21, 2007. As decided by the All India Coordination Committee of Working Women (CITU), several state coordination committees including Assam, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Tripura and Orissa have organised their state conventions. In other states they will be held either along with the state conferences of CITU or just prior to them. The eighth convention will review the activities in the last three years relating to the participation and role of the working women in the day-to-day activities of CITU, their presence in the leadership positions in CITU and the efforts made to train the working women activists to develop them into effective trade union leaders. A special discussion will be held on ‘Women Workers in the Unorganised Sector’. As is the practice, the documents adopted in the convention will be placed in the 12th Conference of CITU for ratification.

The importance given by the CITU in organising working women is evident from the fact that MK Pandhe, president of CITU will not only inaugurate the convention but also will also be present on all the three days and keenly follow the deliberations and guide them. Another secretary of CITU, Kanai Bannerjee will also participate in the convention on all the three days.

The Andhra Pradesh state CCWW and particularly the Visakhapatnam district CCWW and the district committee of CITU have started the preparations for the convention in September itself, by organising a meeting in which working women leaders from different sectors participated. A reception committee with Punyavathi, vice president of the state committee of CITU as the general secretary and many prominent working women leaders and activists as patrons and members was formed in this meeting. Teams of working women have started collecting funds and organising lunch hour meetings, group meetings, distributing leaflets etc as part of the campaign for the convention. The campaign is receiving enthusiastic response not only from the women workers and employees but also from the common people. 

The Visakhapatnam district CCWW organised two seminars – one on contract workers’ problems and the other on sexual harassment at workplace. Malini Bhattacharya, member, National Commission for Women participated in the seminar on sexual harassment organised on October 13, 2006. They have also decided to organise a massive rally on the November 5 by mobilising thousands of working women. MK Pandhe, Brinda Karat, MP and vice president of AIDWA and Hemalata, convenor of the AICCWW and other leaders will address the rally.

It is to be remembered that the CITU has noted the importance of organising the workingwomen in its first conference itself and organised the first national convention along with its fourth conference in Chennai in 1979. The CITU believes that the trade union movement cannot achieve its full strength unless workingwomen who form a significant proportion of the working class are organised and actively participate in the trade unions. It also firmly believes that this participation should not be merely passive but should be trained to function as effective trade union leaders, not just of women but of the entire working people. They should be given their due place in the decision making bodies of CITU at all levels. The AICCWW was formed with the mandate to make efforts to ensure that these objectives of the CITU are achieved. 

In the last 27 years, the participation of women in the various activities and struggles of CITU has increased greatly. Women membership in CITU at the national level has crossed 20 percent. In some states like Karnataka and Maharashtra, women constitute around 60 percent of the CITU membership. In some other states like Assam and Himachal Pradesh, they constitute more than 40 percent. In several other states it is between 25- 40 percent. The number of women office bearers at the national level has increased. At present, almost all the state committees of CITU have at least one woman office bearer. As per the reports of the state conferences of CITU held recently, in many states the proportion of women office bearers has increased. The number of women in the state committees of CITU has increased. In many states, most or all the district committees of CITU have women office bearers and committee members. In Andhra Pradesh, in more than 200 out of the 900 mandal committees that the CITU has formed in the state, women have been elected as presidents or general secretaries. In many others women have been elected as office bearers. The number of women full timers in CITU has also increased.

In the campaigns and struggles of the CITU in several states, women workers constitute at least half if not more of the total participants. All over the country the anganwadi employees have come to be recognised as militant fighters facing police repression and harassment by the officers. The ten day relay hunger strike conducted by the All India Federation of Anganwadi Workers and Helpers affiliated to the CITU in which more than 15 thousand anganwadi employees from 22 states participated is unprecedented in the history of the trade union movement in the country.

While reviewing the experiences of these struggles and the experiences in its efforts to draw more women towards the CITU, the convention will also try to self critically examine its short comings in order to improve its functioning. The AICCWW meeting held in Ernakulam in August has observed that the functioning of the state coordination committees in some states needs improvement. Many unions have not yet formed women’s sub committees. Many of the district CCWWs and the women’s sub committees were not functioning regularly. It also noted that with proper planning there was vast scope to increase women membership in CITU in several states. This is particularly so in view of the decision of the CITU to pay more attention to organise the workers in the unorganised sector, where women work in large numbers. 

The discriminatory practices against workingwomen continue even today. Women are discriminated at the time of recruitment, in wages, in promotional opportunities etc. Equal Remuneration Act, Maternity Benefit Act etc are not implemented. The government has not yet enacted the act against sexual harassment nearly ten years after the Supreme Court order on the matter. It has decided to permit night shift work for women without providing adequate protection and transport facilities up to their place of residence. The large numbers of women in the unorganised sector have no job protection, no minimum wages nor any social security benefits. They do not have any child care facilities. Though the NCMP of the UPA government has made a commitment to universalise the Integrated Child Development Services to cover all the eligible children, it has not yet allotted the necessary funds for this. It has not conceded the demand of the unions to convert the anganwadi centres into day care centres cum crèches so that women workers in the unorganised sector can leave their children there for the entire day. It refuses to regularise the services of anganwadi employees even after 20 - 25 years of service. The government itself resorts to exploitative forms of employment by denying the status of employees to lakhs of its workers and calls them ‘social workers’ ‘community workers’ ‘activists’ ‘volunteers’ etc.

The AICCWW convention will examine in depth the conditions of workingwomen and the problems they face at the workplace and in their places of residence. It will also discuss the impact of the policies of globalisation on workingwomen in different sectors, the attacks on the workers in general, and women workers in particular, the conditions of women workers in the Special Economic Zones and the displacement of thousands of peasants and agricultural workers because of the allotment of fertile land to the promoters of the SEZs, the non implementation of labour rights and the tremendous difficulties faced by workingwomen in these circumstances. It will also discuss the continuing social oppression on women, the alarming increase in the number of female foeticides, the increasing tendency towards superstitious beliefs even among educated sections, the increasing evil social practices like dowry, child marriages etc, the atrocities against dalits and particularly the attacks on dalit women. It will try to evolve methods to organise workingwomen in increasing numbers facing such conditions.

The 8th convention of AICCWW will certainly help in advancing the workingwomen’s movement and the role of workingwomen in CITU.