THE 13th all India conference of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions began on March 17 in Chandigarh, Punjab. The five day conference is attended by 2500 delegates from all over the country.
The conference started with the flag hoisting by the all India president of CITU, M K Pandhe, followed by homage to the martyrs. The president of the reception committee, Dr Joginder Singh Paur, ex Vice Chancellor, Punjabi University, Patiala, delivered the welcome address. The inaugural session was greeted by Gurudas Dasgupta of AITUC, Sarbesh Dwivedi of BMS, A D Nagpal of HMS, S P Tiwari of TUCC, Abani Roy of UTUC, AICCTU and Subhash Sharma of INTUC. George Mavrikose, secretary general, WFTU and Andre Bogui, director of ILO South Asia also greeted the conference.
M K Pandhe delivered the presidential address. Speaking about the national and international situation, he said the conference is taking place at a time when the world is at crossroads and the working class has to make a positive contribution in shaping the destiny of the world. The recent global capitalist crisis has brought to the forefront the inevitability of the periodic crisis in a capitalist system.
As a result of globalization, speculative trade got a powerful boost whose real beneficiaries were the multi national corporations who operate through worldwide financial institutions. During 2007 for example, speculative trade in commodity market was five times bigger than the total trade in stock market. It has reached a scandalous proportions when it was revealed that it was ten times larger than the world GDP.
The drive towards privatisation and market economy always leads to speculative tendencies and capitalist mode of production is bound to create such a crisis. The US economic bubble busted when the topmost investment banks became bankrupt. Those who opposed government intervention in economic matters had to ask for nationalisation of toxic assets of the bankrupt companies. US government had to shell out $ 700 billion from tax payers’ money to save those companies from collapsing.
Pandhe emphasised that the tax burden of the bail out packages ultimately fell on the working class and the common people. The collapse of the share markets in leading capitalist countries resulted in workers losing trillions of dollars of their pension funds, which were invested by the pension authorities in speculative activities. In our country, the workers were saved from this from this horror due to the Left’s strong opposition to the UPA government’s move to pump the pension funds into speculative activities. In several countries wage cuts were imposed on the workers, adversely affecting their living standards.
Pandhe observed that Indian banking industry did not collapse because the banks were owned by the government. Even the Life Insurance Corporation was not affected since it was in the public sector. If the UPA government. would have succeeded in privatising these sectors, the impact of the crisis in India would have been more severe, he maintained.
In line with other advanced capitalist countries, the UPA government announced liberal ‘Stimulus package’ estimating Rs 5 lakh crore to save the Indian industry. However, no relief was given to the workers who were the worst victims of the crisis. The experience of bail out package has shown that the amount pumped in, only fattened the big business houses, both Indian and foreign. Imposition of 12 hours day work, enhancement of workload on the workers, closing down industrial units without following the legal procedure, retrenchment of workforce without paying statutory compensation became the order of the day. The government of India callously connived at these depredations to save the big business houses and their profitability.
Pandhe said, a remarkable trade union unity has been built in India against the privatisation moves of the union government, against contractorisation and casualisation of labour and many joint programmes were held in the recent past.
He said, Indian struggle against globalisation cannot assume a powerful shape unless the vast masses of peasant and agricultural workers are drawn into it and the CITU would continue to work towards building this solidarity.
35 Foreign delegates from 15 countries are also participating in this conference. They were introduced and felicitated in the inaugural session.
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