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Nationwide strike by TUs on April 16

Holding out a warning to the Centre that its ''anti-labour'' policies would be met with stern resistance, central trade unions on Thursday decided to observe a ''total shutdown'' in the public sector on April 16.

Addressing a massive rally of workers of 13 central trade unions and federations at the Parliament Street as part of national protest day, All India Trade Union Congress general secretary Gurudas Dasgupta said if the government did not respond positively to workers' grievances after the April 16 strike, the unions would launch a road and rail blockade throughout the country.

Complimenting the various trade unions for coming on a single platform, Dasgupta said the process of liberalization begun in 1991 had culminated in ''an unbroken series of anti-labour legislation and thoughtless privatisation,'' leaving in its wake a restless work force in the country.

''From this platform, I announce the beginning of a sustained struggle against the anti-labour, anti-people government at the Centre,'' he said and called upon the labour sector to launch a strike in the private sector also.

Describing the government's economic policies as 'LPG' (liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation), he said it was being pursued with full vigour by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance dispensation under the pressure of multinational corporations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the World Trade Organisation.

''The government has meekly surrendered before the western powers, resulting in large-scale unemployment and penury for workers and farmers. Such a situation is unacceptable to us,'' he thundered at the meeting, as protestors burnt effigies of Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha and Divestment Minister Arun Shourie.

The speakers, who included CITU (Centre of Indian Trade Unions) general secretary M K Pandey, AICCTU (ALL India Central Council of Trade Unions) general secretary Swapan Mukherjee and Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh's Delhi unit general secretary D R Malik, also demanded rolling back of thoughtless privatisation, restricting imports of essential items, stopping amendment of labour laws in favour of employers, strengthening public distribution system and restoring an interest rate of 12 per cent on savings.

The other demands included entry of multinationals only in very essential and specified areas, passage of a comprehensive law to protect agricultural labour and restoration of essential subsidies for common man and farmers.

Pandey said the BJP government had initially assured that only loss-making public sector undertakings would be divested and privatised. ''However, in reality, profit-making PSUs are being sold for a song.''

Pandey said it was amazing that the so-called labour reforms were introduced not by the labour minister but by the finance minister.

''There is no parallel to it in the parliamentary history of post-independent India,'' he pointed out.

The workers were particularly opposed to recent amendments in labour laws that allowed the management of a unit having a labour force of less than 1000 to close it down without seeking government permission.

''On one hand, the management has been resorting to hire and fire policy, while on the other, the government is allowing it to shut down a unit. This shows that the government had been pursuing an anti-labour agenda at the behest of the IMF, World Bank and MNCs.'' he said.

Hind Mazdoor Sangh secretary Harbhajan Singh Sidhu said the governments at the Centre during the past 12 years had projected liberalisation as a panacea for the country's ailing economy.

''Instead, it has left behind an army of 140 million unemployed youth,'' he said and asserted that the government must change its economic policies. Otherwise, the aggrieved workers of the country would change the ''anti-people'' dispensation.

Sidhu said the downsizing and retrenchment, enlargement of tax net for the salaried class and imposition of a five per cent service tax would prove detrimental to the interests of the working class.

Representatives of LIC and GIC workers' unions also slammed the government for allowing the entry of MNCs and private players in the insurance sector.

''The levy of five per cent service tax on insurance policies will act as a deterrent to the penetration of insurance in the rural sector,'' they said.

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