Nov 30, 1998
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TRADE UNIONS Itching To Strike Congress and left trade unions decide on joint protests to embarrass the BJP Government. By Sumit Mitra
The date is well chosen as it follows the declaration of assembly poll results in four states. If the BJP slips, the Congress and the left parties are sure to close ranks -- at the trade-union level to begin with. The red flags of the Centre for Trade Unions (CITU), the trade- union arm of the CPI(M), and the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), the CPI's trade-union wing, are these days seen fluttering together with the INTUC tricolour at sensitive industrial centres where militancy is brewing -- the steel plants at Bokaro and Rourkela, the sick textile units in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, the coal mines that are facing closure in West Bengal's Raniganj area, the headquarters and branches of several nationalised banks and the eight Central PSUs that the Government intends to close down.
The call for the all-India bandh on December 11 and a strike at all the 240 Central psus on December 10 and 11 have been given by the National Platform of Mass Organisations (NPMO), a pro-Left outfit that includes, apart from left trade-union organisations, a gaggle of radical NGOs like Medha Patkar's and the Kerala fishermen's forum of Thomas Kocherry. Neither the INTUC nor the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), the trade-union wing of the ruling BJP, is a part of the NPMO. However, intense pressure from the ranks is building up on INTUC President Sanjeeva Reddy to align the Congress' labour arm with the Left-led bandh. On November 11 at a joint public rally of the citu, aituc and the pro-Left Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS) at Calcutta's Shahid Minar, INTUC General Secretary Subrata Mukherjee surprised the participants by getting on the stage and supporting the December 11 bandh. At Rourkela Steel Plant, CITU General Secretary M.K. Pandhe has addressed a rally of pro-INTUC workers. The Joint Action Front of PSUs based in Bangalore now includes the leftist trade unions and the INTUC. Pandhe says that "the anti-labour policies" of the BJP Government are "removing political differences".
Says Reddy, taken aback by his organisation's quick Left turn: "We are not ready to take part in the Bharat bandh though we are one with all others in condemning the all-round failure of the Central Government." However, INTUC insiders say that in spite of their president's reluctance the organisation's leaders will sit with those of the CITU, AITUC and HMS in a demonstration before Parliament on November 30, the opening day of the winter session. If that happens, there will be quite a few red faces in the Congress as the leftist trade unions' agitation is directed, among other things, against the post-1991 structural adjustment programme of the P.V. Narasimha Rao government. Pandhe says with obvious glee that "my INTUC friends" are no longer "splitting hair" over which government was in power when "diabolical" policies were imposed on the country by the IMF. Significantly, the BMS is not sitting pretty either and is no defender of the Sangh Parivar Government -- though it is staying out of the Bharat bandh. On November 30, the BMS too is holding a sit-in before Parliament to protest the "anti-labour policies of the BJP Government". Earlier this month, the saffron labourites were conspicuous in the company of red and tricolour flags at a number of rallies at the scope complex in the capital and in Noida held in preparation for the December 10-11 PSU bandh. The trade unions are unanimous in their condemnation of the PSU closure move. BMS General Secretary H.V. Dave has in a statement called the move "a sellout to MNCs" and demanded a curb on the powers of the Disinvestment Commission. At an all-trade union meeting with Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee this month, BMS Senior Vice-President R.K. Bhakt was the most vocal. He told Vajpayee: "In the National Agenda for Governance you have promised to make labour a partner. But now you have started taking decisions involving the fate of workers without even telling them." Senior leftist members at the meeting were stunned by Bhakt's accusatory tone.
The BMS has traditionally maintained a distance from the BJP. As R.Venugopal, the organisation's working president, says, "There is an unwritten rule that nobody in the BMS circle can contest parliamentary or assembly elections. Even campaigning is not allowed". But as the largest central trade union (membership: 31,17,324, on the basis of last verification in 1989) it is keen to protect its turf against the growing militancy of other trade unions. It is still opposed to agitational movements but can't avoid sharing platforms with the leftists and the INTUC in industries where workers may interpret pacifism as being soft to the party in power. At the moment, however, it is the unity of the INTUC and the leftist unions which is spreading fast to the ground level. In Raniganj, where ICICI, the financial institution, has recommended closure of 64 coal mines, red and tricolour joint rallies are a daily feature. On the anvil is an indefinite strike at the coal mines to save the 77,000 jobs that will be lost if the mines are closed. At the nationalised banks, the nine major unions (including the pro-BMS union) have formed a joint front to demand pay parity with Grade III Central government employees and to resist the proposed closure of nearly 10,000 uneconomic branches (out of 79,000). In the insurance sector, all six unions have got together to prevent the entry of private capital and to demand higher wages than in the banks. At the Revenue Department of the Finance Ministry, the 1 lakh-strong staff struck work for three days this month demanding higher wages. The coordination committee of Revenue Department employees are meeting on December 3 with an indefinite strike on the agenda. Labour discontent is also spreading to the Department of Post, where employees belonging to the Congress and Left-led trade unions had struck work for two weeks within days of the Vajpayee Government coming to power. Though the strike was withdrawn, discontent at the government's refusal to absorb the large extra-departmental staff lingers. In the telecom sector too, unions are demanding that cable layers and such non-staffers be mustered in. In all these industries, crucial union meetings are due in December to decide on future agitational plans. If the political atmosphere hots up, the disaffection of labour in the public sector can turn into an explosive chain reaction. After a marked cooling-off on the labour front (see chart), strikes are clearly on the rise. Labour Ministry sources say that nearly 50 lakh mandays -- almost the same as last year -- may have been lost in strikes in the first six months of this year. Statistics on labour, including those regarding loss of mandays, usually take a long time to compile. It is still clear from available figures that mandays lost in the Central Government had dropped dramatically in the two United Front-ruled years of 1996 and 1997, from 38.6 lakh in 1995 (Congress-ruled year) to 12 lakh and 13.1 lakh respectively. Officials connected with compilation of labour data say that mandays lost in the Government in the first six months may be touching 12.5 lakh, so the year may as well end with a tally of around 20 lakh. That's a sharp jump from the relative peace when the UF was in power, supported by the Congress. The growing tension on the labour front is arguably an offshoot of abrupt job cuts and job freeze in the public sector -- the PSUs employed four lakh people less between December 1995 and 1996 -- and rising wage expectations across the economy in the wake of the Central Government employees' pay revision. The economic slowdown has also taken its tally by squeezing job opportunities. But it is surely the wobbliness of the BJP rule and the possible emergence of a Congress-Left coalition that have lent to labour's grouse a touch of immediacy. |
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Sonia Gandhi and Jyoti Basu
may be two unwilling horses yoked together to the carriage of political marriage. But at
the factory level the labour unions of the Congress and the left parties have hit it off
like a house on fire. Come December 11 -- the day the left trade unions have threatened to
bring life to a grinding halt in every town and village -- and the Indian National Trade
Union Congress (INTUC), the central trade-union organisation of the Congress, will stand
by its Left allies not only for the "Bharat bandh" but also for the series of
labour actions that are to follow.
