People's Democracy

Gifting Of Workers' PF Amounts To  Corporates Slammed

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) issued the following statement on July 30, 2008

THE Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) strongly opposes the decision of the trustees of the Employees Provident Fund at the behest of the central government to hand over the huge amounts of workers Provident Fund contributions to finance companies for speculative purposes in the Stock Exchange. By this decision around Rs 2,40,000 crore in the corpus fund and another Rs 30,000 crore of the annual incremental fund will be literally gifted to the corporates. While the companies can make profits, there is no guarantee of minimum returns to the workers. Thus the savings of workers over years of hard work can be wiped out through speculation. This decision reverses a hard won gain of the working classes over years of struggle for a minimum guaranteed return on their contribution, post-retirement.

This decision marks the beginning of a process of privatisation of workers and employees savings which had been strongly opposed by the CPI(M) which had ensured that the UPA government did not go ahead with this anti-worker policy. Even now, the decision was pushed through in the most undemocratic way in spite of the opposition by the majority of workers representatives. The reported late selection of Reliance Capital as one of the fund managers is an indication of the cost of support to this tainted government.

The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) extends its support to the protest struggles against this decision by workers and employees. It demands that the government should refrain from implementing this anti-worker decision.