Now, trade unions plan national strike

Rejuvenated by the success of the all-India strike on July 5, the Left and the saffron forces are planning another strike.

This time the trade unions of the Left parties will join hand with the trade union of the Sangh Parivar- the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) - to call a strike in the first week of September.

A national convention of the nine central trade unions on July 15 will finalise the date of the industrial strike. Price rise and the jump in fuel prices will be the dominant theme for the upcoming strike.

To embarrass the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government further, the Left and BMS leaders are trying to rope in Congress' trade union wing, the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC).

Tapan Sen, the general secretary of the CPI (M)-affiliated Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU), said: "All the central trade unions will participate in the strike including INTUC and BMS."

All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) chief Gurudas Dasgupta told Business Standard: "Why are you amazed that INTUC will join the strike? It has already participated in many protest programmes with us in the past few months." INTUC chief G Sanjeeva Reddy could not be contacted.

On July 5, the Left parties had given a call for an all-India strike that coincided with a similar call from the Bharatiya Janata Party. The two main opposition parties (which rule in 10 states) were joined by others like the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh and the Telegu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh.

Apart from price rise, there are five other issues that have provoked the trade unions to push for a strike. According to CITU Secretary Dipankar Mukherjee, "We will protest against the loss of jobs and the decrease in wages because of the global meltdown and violation of labour laws."

"We will also protest outsourcing and use of contract workers and the government's apathy towards creating a viable National Social Security Fund," Mukherjee added.

In the 2010-11 Budget, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had announced the creation of a social security fund for the welfare of workers in the unorganised sector with a corpus of Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion).

But Mukherjee thinks it is just a token. "It should be at least 5 per cent of the gross domestic product. How can you cater to such a large workforce with just Rs 1,000 crore," he asks.

The government had taken the opposition head on over the July 5 strike. The petroleum ministry came out with advertisements in dailies saying strikes will not solve the problem of inflation.

While the trade unions are gearing up for their favourite pastime, a strike, the four Left parties are also planning a month-long agitation in August over the issues of price rise and food security.