People's Democracy
(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
No.
01
January 03, 2010
|
Vol. XXXIV
No.
01 January 03, 2010 |
Oil
& Gas Workers Conf Denounces
Pvt policy of UPA Govt
THE triennial conference of the
Petroleum and Gas
Workers� Federation of India (PGWFI) was held at Mumbai on December
11-12, 2009.
The thematic slogans of the conference were: �Protect oil PSUs to
energise
self-reliant national economy� and �unify struggles
of regular and contract workers to fortify right
to trade union and right to collective
bargaining�
A total of 232 delegates from 48 unions
affiliated
with the federation attended the conference. Workers of upstream and
down
stream oil PSUs including ONGC, OIL, GAIL, IOCL, BPCL, HPCL, CPCL, KRL,
NRL
were represented in the conference. Segment-wise break up of the
delegates were
thus: exploration and production of oil and gas � 65; refining � 51;
marketing
� 110 and others � 06. It is important
to take note of the unique composition of the affiliates of the
federation. Apart
from the CITU affiliated unions, there are many major independent trade
unions
affiliated with the federation and some of them are the lone recognised
ones in
their respective companies/units. Further, it is of paramount
importance that
both the regular and contract workers� unions of the oil PSUs are
constituents
of the federation. Out of the 48 unions that participated in the
conference, 29 were of the regular
workers and 19 belonged to the contract workers.
INAUGURAL
SESSION
The inaugural session was a very colourful
one. It
was held at the spacious auditorium at Chembur, Mumbai. More than
twelve hundred
workers from all the oil PSUs participated in the inaugural session.
Bilateralism was one of the highlights of the inaugural session. While
the directors/general
managers (human resources) of all major public sector oil companies
attended
the conference, the chief managing directors(CMDs) of ONGC, IOC and
HPCL were
also present in the session and addressed the participants. The
fraternal
delegates from abroad of course also took part in the session.
The inaugural session commenced with the
presidential
address delivered by Pradeep Mayekar, the president of the federation.
M K
Pandhe, president, CITU addressed the session as chief guest. He spoke at length dealing with the
international
oil economy and barbarous policy of political hegemony of imperialist
powers.
He narrated the highly appreciable role of the oil PSUs in our country
and
severely criticised the government of the day for privatising the oil
sector
through different routes. He expressed serious concern at the massive
contractorisation in oil PSUs. The CMDs and foreign fraternal delegates also
addressed the session. The delegates from different parts of the
country were highly
impressed at the size and shine of the inaugural session.
DELEGATE
SESSION
The delegate session was held on
December 12, at the auditorium of Vasudhara Bhavan
complex of ONGC at Bandra, Mumbai. It commenced with the adoption of
condolence
resolutions followed by constitution of credential committee, minutes
committee
and committee for liaisoning with unions for nomination to executive
committee
to be elected in the conference. Tapan Sen, senior vice president of
the federation
delivered the opening speech setting the tone of the session.
Swadesh Dev Roye, general secretary placed
the report
of the secretariat. The report dealt with the collapse of imperialist
globalisation,
the crisis of capitalist economies and shocking response by the
capitalist governments
and the struggles of the working class in the international arena. On
national
front, it detailed the retrograde steps of the UPA-II government and
post
election push to disinvestment pin pointing the onslaught of
privatisation on
oil PSUs in the country. An elaborate analysis of the world oil
scenario in the
matter of reserves, production and refining, onslaught of private oil
MNCs and
imperialist machinations against the oil rich countries and state owned
oil
enterprises was made in the report. New technology, investment and new
discovery of crude oil reserve, mergers and acquisitions have been
discussed in
the report. The other important issues discussed in the report are the
volatility of crude oil pricing in the international market and
significant
role played by the government of Hugo Chavez of
Dipankar Mukherjee, vice president,
supplemented the
placement of the report. In his speech he dealt with certain basic
issues of
the industry and critically elaborated the pricing policy of the
government. His
article exposing the role of the government on the gas pricing and the
tussle
between the Ambani brothers has been annexed with the general report.
The report has also undertaken a review of
the
activities of the federation during the intervening period and charted
out the
forthcoming struggles and organisational tasks. The initiative of the
federation
in organising the contract workers in oil PSUs on the basis of their
burning
issues has been brought into immense focus
in the general report.
26 delegates both from regular and contract
workers
participated in the discussion on the report. The highlights of the
discussion
were the denouncement of the policy of privatisation of the government,
the
current round of wage negotiations, disturbing ratio of executives and
workmen
in the total manpower in the oil PSUs, aggravating adverse relativity
in pay
and benefits between workers and executives etc. The urgency of
integrating the
struggles of the regular and contract workers was stressed upon by the
speakers. Self-critical discussion on the organisational weakness was
an
important feature of the debate. The
facts, figures and formulations featured in the general report have
received
appreciation from amongst the participants in the debate. After reply
to the
debate by the general secretary, the report was adopted unanimously.
Since inception, the federation has been
continuously expanding its international relations through exchange of
delegations and participating in international events of petroleum
workers
trade union movement. While delegations
from
NEW
COMMITTEE
The conference decided to have a total of 31
office bearers
and 57 executive committee members (ECMs). While 28 office
bearers including Pradeep Mayekar as president,
Swadesh Dev Roye as general secretary and Swapan Ganguly as secretary
(finance)
were unanimously elected by the delegates, three posts have been kept
vacant to
be filled up in future as per requirement. Similarly 57 ECMs were
nominated/elected out of which nine have been subsequently elected as
office bearers
resulting in nine vacancies of ECMs which would be filled up in future.
The re-elected president of the federation
Pradeep Mayekar
(himself, a blue collar worker of ONGC, posted at Mumbai) delivered the
concluding speech. He expressed his deep
satisfaction at the most successful conclusion of the conference. He said both the inaugural session and
delegate session attained all round success. He
thanked the delegates from all over the
country for their participation in the conference and contribution in
the
He clearly identified three distinct
important
factors which have contributed in a big way in strengthening the
coordination
amongst the trade unions functioning in different oil PSUs in Mumbai
which in
turn has organisationally helped the respective unions. Firstly through
the
activities of the united forum against privatisation of Oil PSUs,
secondly by
participating in the foundation conference and ultimately joining the
federation
and thirdly through the activities in successfully hosting the present
conference of the federation.
Finally he appealed to all the unions to take
all
necessary steps to implement the tasks identified in the general report
of the secretariat
and ultimately adopted in the conference. He also stressed upon the
need for
fighting the menace of contractorisation in oil sector.
