Tapan Sen (General Secretary : CITU)
The trade union movement of the country has entered into a new phase with all the eleven Central Trade Unions in the country having different affiliations and political line-up coming together on a single platform for joint action on common issues facing the working class of the country. It is the culmination of mass scale resentment among the common workers at the grass root against the grievous fall out of the policies of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation on their life and livelihood and an urge increasing for united action. The decades-long process of united trade union action by many central trade unions and independent employees federations and also the experience of united actions in many sectors like banks, insurance, defence, telecom, coal and in many other public sector units also have contributed in a big way towards developing such a prospect of all in unity in the trade union movement in the country. That process has witnessed 12 countrywide general strikes by the Sponsoring Committee of Trade Unions since the onset of the neoliberal policy regime in 1991. The platform of the 13th General Strike got further widened with INTUC joining the strike action on 7th September 2010. The 14th General Strike on 28th February 2012 is going to create history in the annals of the trade union movement embracing all the eleven central trade unions including BMS and LPF on its platform.
The Issues before the Working Class
The call for the countrywide general strike was to press for the 10 point charter of demands pertaining to the most burning problems facing crores of the working people in the country.
The problems relate to their survival, which is being put in jeopardy by the neoliberal policies being pursued by successive governments. This strike is intended to make the voice of the toiling people heard by the government so far insensitive to their demands.
Price Rise
One of the major demands is against the continuing price rise of essential commodities demanding concrete action to contain the same. The trade unions have put forth in concrete terms the measures to be taken to arrest the spiralling rise in prices before the government. They have demanded universalisation of public distribution system and a complete ban on speculation and futures trade in commodity market which alone can contain the rising prices; there cannot be a third way for the same.
The government is refusing to adopt those concrete measures to contain price-rise. Instead, every now and then, the Prime Minister, Finance Minister et al announce that prices would come down or get moderated soon which did never happen.
The government is also claiming that prices are going up owing to increase in the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for the farmers! In 2011, minimum support price of rice was Rs 1080/- per quintal, i.e., Re 10.8/- per kg. But for the consumer it is no less than Rs 24 to Rs 28 in the open market. The minimum support price of wheat is Rs 1120 per quintal working out to be Re 11.20 per kg. For the consumer, it is no less than Rs20/- per kg. How does the MSP influence the prices in the retail market? Some of the regularly used pulses like tur and urad dal cost hardly Rs 30 per kg as per the minimum support price; but none is available at below Rs 60 to Rs 100 in the open market. Even in the public distribution system for the APL category, the price of rice and wheat is much above the MSP level, even if procurement, storage and transportation costs are taken into account. Talking of minimum support price to justify price rise is nothing but a shabby act of deception and fraud on the people.
Another plea put forward by the government, by no less than a person the like Prime Minister is that the prices were going up because people have more money in their hand owing to rise in their incomes as a result of economic growth. Workers themselves know the utter falsehood of such a claim. Nothing else can be farther from truth. Increase in GDP is no doubt a contribution entirely of the toiling class but the fruits of growth are looted away by the employer’s class-the corporates and big-business, both domestic and foreign, under the government’s active patronage. GDP is growing, and at the same time growing is the number of contract workers with low wages with sharply declining regular workers in almost all the workplaces. The share of wages in the net value added has come down to around 9.2 per cent while the share of profit has gone up to 53.8 per cent.
In fact the realities are exactly the opposite. As per the latest Economic Survey, growth of private final consumption expenditure has fallen from 8.6 per cent in 2005-06 to 7.3 per cent in 2010-11.
During the last five year period, population has increased and even then the growth of private final consumption expenditure has fallen. Can this ever be possible unless the mass of the consumers are consuming less?
The rise in the prices of essential commodities is being promoted by the government through their deliberate policy of weakening and debilitating the public distribution system on the one hand and patronising corporate consolidation in commodity trade, particularly in food and related commodities on the other. When the price of rice and wheat were soaring in the market, the government most shamelessly, kept locked a huge stock of 600 lakh tones of food grains in the FCI godowns preventing prices from coming down, just to please their trader bosses. When a part of the stock was released, the public distribution system route was bypassed and the grains were released in the open market to facilitate private corporate traders to lift the stock for hoarding. In fact the price-rise has become a joint venture of the government and the corporate traders to facilitate windfall profits for the latter.
The public distribution system has been virtually dismantled throughout the country except in a few states. A large number of people have been pushed out of its purview on the restrictive plea of ridiculous poverty line to make them the sacrificial animal for profiteering by the traders lobby, both domestic and foreign. To add fuel to flame, petroleum price has been deregulated, energy prices are being pushed up, and urea prices are being doubled.
Enforcement of Labour Laws
Trade Unions have been demanding for strict enforcement of all basic labour laws without any exception or exemption and stringent punitive measures for violation of labour laws. Violation of labour laws by the employers with active connivance of law enforcement machinery has become a major instrument for increasing profit where workers and workers alone are targeted for cost-minimisation in the production or services in all the workplaces. So in majority of the workplaces, statutory minimum wages are not paid, basic social security benefits are denied with impunity. In fact, 90 % of the disputes and conflicts going on in different workplaces in the country relate to just non implementation of the existing labour laws. The employers’ class in close connivance with the respective governments and the labour departments in particular have made a gang up to subject the mass of the working people, who create wealth for the economy, revenue for the exchequer and profit for the employers, to worst form of exploitation and loot through just non implementation of the basic labour laws pertaining to minimum wages, working hours, safety in workplace, social security benefits etc.
To prevent the workers to organise and resist such barbarous exploitation, the governments flung into action in support of the employers to prevent formation of trade union activities in their workplaces. In most of the private sector workplaces and even in some public sector units, whenever workers take initiative to form trade union, those taking such initiatives are thrown out of employment on some fabricated charges. Implicating the workers in false criminal cases for taking part in trade union activities has become a regular practice in many of the states. The recent happenings at Maruti Suzuki Plant at Gurgaon/Manesar at Haryana, incidents at Hyundai and Foxconn at Tamilnadu, Allied Nippon at Ghaziabad, and Mother Dairy in Delhi are some glaring examples of such government - employers’ gang up to crush trade unions in workplaces. Trade unions are not being registered; applications for registration of trade unions gather dust in the office of registrar for months together in most of the states in the country. This is nothing but an attack on right to freedom of association and right to collective bargaining which is considered to be essential component of labour rights in any civilised society and codified as “core labour standards” by ILO which adopted specific conventions no 87 and 98. The government of India has not yet ratified these conventions on flimsy grounds. The Central Trade Unions therefore have put forth specific demand that there must be compulsory registration of trade unions within a period of 45 days after the application is made and the government of India must ratify the ILO Conventions nos. 87 and 98 without further delay.
Universal Social Security for Unorganised Sector Workers
More than 93% cent of country’s workforce is in the unorganised sector. They have been practically kept outside the purview of most of the labour laws and do not have any protection in respect of working hours, minimum wages, social security and above all any kind of job security despite contributing around 65% to the country’s GDP. Since the onset of neoliberal policy regime, the unorganised sector workforce is expanding fast along with simultaneous decline in the size of regular or permanent workers in all the sectors of economy. Due to pressure from the trade union and popular movements the government after long dilly dallying enacted the Unorganised Workers Social Security Act in 2008 but that legislation is nothing but a fraud on the unorganised sector workers. The provisions of the said legislation practically throw overwhelming majority of the unorganised sector workers out of the purview of the social security schemes envisaged under the same. Almost all the ten social security/welfare schemes listed in its schedule are meant for only the persons below the poverty line. The official definition of “poverty line” is such that overwhelming majority of the unorganised sector workers will not qualify and therefore will not get any benefit under those schemes. The National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS) constituted by the UPA-I government recommended universal coverage of all unorganised sector workers by a National Floor Level Social Security cover and constitution of a National Social Security Fund with adequate fund provision. This was unanimously upheld by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour. The National Social Security Board constituted under the Act also made the same unanimous recommendation. But the government has done nothing on this till now.
The deceptive approach of the government towards the unorganised sector is reflected by the nature of fund allocation for the social security benefit for unorganised sector workers. Union Budget (2010-11) allocated a paltry amount of Rs 1000 crore for the purpose. No body yet knows how that money was or has been spent. The government has been boasting that more than 2 crore people have been issued “smart cards” under Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY). But, the allocation made by the central government in 2010-11 Budget cannot take care of even 1% of the below poverty line (BPL) families, not to speak of the unorganised sector workers in general. The RSBY envisages covering all the 6.52 crores families estimated by the Planning Commission to be BPL, in5 years. The government would have to spend Rs 4,875 crores annually to pay the 75% of the annual premium of Rs 750, as per the RSBY. But, in the 2009-10 Budget, only Rs 308 crore was allotted in that account. The last budget has not increased the allocation.
This is an integral part of the ongoing process of loot being engineered by the neoliberal policy regime while the government seeks to befool the people chanting aam admi slogan on every occasion. To cry halt to such cruel approach towards the overwhelming majority of country’s working people, the Central Trade Unions demanded in one voice that concrete measures have to be taken for universal social security cover for the unorganized sector workers without any restriction and creation of a National Social Security Fund with adequate resources in line with the recommendation of NCEUS and Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour.
Stop Disinvestment
The Central Trade Unions also demand complete stoppage of disinvestment of shares in profit making Central and State PSUs. The government is arguing that disinvestment is meant for expanding peoples’ ownership including employees’ ownership of public sector companies, for garnering resources for social sector welfare expenditures and also for modernisation expenditures for public sector companies themselves. It is also pleading that only minority shares will be disinvested and hence there is no fear for privatisation. Such plea of the government is nothing but a total falsehood widely propagated to befool the workers and the people.
It is utterly obnoxious to talk about expanding people’s ownership through disinvestment. Peoples’ ownership of PSUs can no way be ensured through ownership of PSU shares by private individuals. Rather 100% government ownership and accountability to the parliament elected by the people ensure peoples’ ownership over the PSUs. Any dilution of such status through disinvestment dilutes public ownership in favour of private corporates. The profile and character of private shareholdings in the PSUs disinvested so far clearly exposes this reality. Hardly 1- 1.5% of disinvested shares has gone to private individuals. The majority of them have been cornered by private corporate entities including MNCs and by private mutual funds, both domestic and foreign.
Secondly PSUs do not require to sell their equity for funding their modernisation because they are having huge reserves and surpluses at their command amounting to around Rs five lakh crore plus.
PSUs listed for disinvestment in the current phase are all carrying on their modernisation projects with their own resources without any budgetary support from the government. Moreover, the debt equity ratio of the PSUs is around 0.75 which shows that PSUs can very much go for loans from the banking system if they require for funding their capital expenditure and any dilution of equity for resources with such low-debt-equity ration can no way be justified.
Social sector welfare expenditure for the people is a responsibility of the government elected by the people and is recurring and continuous in nature. Any idea of funding such expenditure through disinvestment of shares of PSUs makes the disinvestment process also a continuing exercise ultimately culminating in privatisation of the PSUs. This clearly exposes the real game plan of privatisation by the government for befooling the people.
No contractorisation
The widespread contractorisation and casualisation of work in most of the workplaces has created an alarming situation. As per official estimate, of the total workforce in work in the country, 51 per cent are self employed, 33.5 per cent are casual and hardly 15.6 per cent are in salaried employment. Of the salaried employment, majority are on contract. In public sector units, share of contract employment is around 50% of the total workforce on the average and in private sector; more than 70% are on contract. These vast sections of contract workers are mostly deprived of almost all statutory benefits barring rare exceptions; their employment is always under threat by the respective contractor and the principal employer. This has given rise to a dangerous dichotomy where, under the same roof, contract workers doing the same work as the regular workers in the establishment, are getting hardly the sixth or even less than their counterpart among regular workers. Continuity of such a grossly discriminatory situation would not only aggravate exploitation of contract workers but also put downward pressure on the wages and service conditions of the regular workers. That is precisely what is taking place in most of the workplaces particularly in private sector establishments. The average level of wages is going down owing to sharp decline in the size of the permanent workers and widespread contractorisation of work. This can no way be tolerated by the working class movement lying down. That is why the demands for “same wage as regular workers for same work for the contract workers”, “benchmarking of minimum wage at not less than Rs 10,000/-”, “removal of all restricting ceiling on provident fund, payment of bonus, gratuity etc” have come up as most pressing demands before the working people of the country as well as before the entire trade union movement voicing their concern.
Assured Pension for all
The present economic policy regime has been working overtime to drastically curtail whatever meager social security benefits available to workers. A grave conspiracy is afoot to drastically dilute the existing pensionary rights of the workers and employees.
The Employees Pension Scheme launched with much fanfare in 1995, despite staunch opposition by CITU has finally proved to be a farce for crores of retired workers who are getting a meager amount as pension compared to their last-drawn wages. In the days to come maintenance of existing level of pension also is going to be difficult given the attitude of the government in administering the present EPS scheme. There has already been curtailment of number of benefits promised under the Employees Pension Scheme at the time of its introduction. The existing pensionary benefits for the government employees are being sought to be dismantled and replaced by a so called New Pension System (NPS) which make the defined pension benefit for the retired government employees totally uncertain and market dependent despite making them to pay 10 per cent of their wages every month for the pension fund. The Pension Fund Development & Regulatory Authority Bill has already been introduced in Parliament to legitimise such retrograde and anti worker exercise. Experience worldwide has already proved that market can never ensure an assured pension for the workers.
In case of the NPS, workers would be made to pay for their pension corpus and the corpus will be used in the stock market for speculation through various fund managers. Not only that, the government is also trying to trap and allure vast section of unorganised sector workers to accept the NPS and subscribe to this scheme from their meager income to the Swavalamban scheme although they will not have any guaranteed amount of pension even after contributing towards the scheme for long thirty years. Just like the Unorganised Workers Social Security Act, the Swavalamban scheme under NPS is another exercise of deception on the unorganised sector workers to harness their contribution to pension corpus for speculation in the stock market.
Through all these exercises in the name pension, the government is making the pension for the workers market dependent and absolutely uncertain. Such evil design cannot be allowed to pass. Hence, the trade unions have unitedly demanded “Assured Pension for all”.
The issues raised by the joint platform of strike action have to be carried to each worker and toiling people in each work place and workers habitations through intensive campaigns. Preparatory campaign for the strike must unleash initiatives of widespread joint campaign at the work place level countrywide. This alone can get the unity percolated at the grass root level and build up sustained and heightened united action against the mounting offensive of the exploiting class and their governments and carrying our struggle to offensive height. That is the way before us. We must leave no stone unturned in carrying the preparatory campaign for the strike to widest possible section of the workers and unleashing joint initiative of campaign in each workplace countrywide to make the General Strike a resounding success throughout the country.
