8th Conference -All India Coal Workers’ Federation

8th Conference -All India Coal Workers’ Federation

The 8th conference of All India Coal Workers’ Federation held on 28 – 30 November 2012 in M K Pandhe Nagar in Maithan in Jharkhand.

The dais was named after the leaders of the federation Lakhan Bagdi & Kameswar Singh, who passed away after the last conference. 386 delegates and guests from 15 affiliated unions participated in the conference.

The conference started with the unfurling of the red flag by SK Bakshi, working president of the federation on 28th November and inaugurated by Nirupam Sen, former minister in the Left Front government in West Bengal. Bamapada Mukherjee, the legendary nonagenarian leader of coal workers movement was felicitated in the conference.

Jibon Roy, general secretary of All India Coal Workers’ Federation placed the report after the last conference.

The report dealt in detail with the conditions of coal workers and the organisational situation of the federation and emphasised the need to strengthen the organisation, cadre development and also to advance united movements.

A K Padmanabhan, president of CITU greeted the conference and strongly criticised the government’s anti worker policies and stressed the need to develop all India movement to defeat such policies.

He called upon the federation to take up the issues of the contract workers, young workers and women workers more seriously. He released the book ‘Contemporary trade union movement, challenges and possibilities’ written by Jibon Roy.

Greeting the conference, Tapan Sen, general secretary of CITU said that the government was facilitating the loot of coal, a precious natural resource of the country, by the big corporations.

He made some concrete suggestions for overcoming certain weaknesses in the functioning of the union. Tapan released the souvenir published on the occasion.

Basudev Acharia, vice president of CITU and MP who has been associated with the coal workers’ movement since a long time congratulated the coal workers for stalling the privatisation bill but cautioned that the danger of privatisation still looms large. He called upon the delegates to strengthen united movements further.

The report was unanimously adopted after 44 delegates participated in the discussion and spoke on the conditions of the coal workers and their experiences in organising them.

The conference also unanimously adopted six resolutions opposing disinvestment, calling for strengthening united movement and total participation of coal workers in the two days’ general strike in February 2013.

A 91 member working committee with Basudev Acharia as president, SK Bakshi as working president, Jibon Roy as general secretary and Sukhapriya Chakraborty as treasurer was elected unanimously by the conference.

Thousands of people including coal workers and other sections of the working people attended the open session on 30th November 2012 held at Netaji Nagar Maidan.

The public meeting was presided by SK Bakshi and addressed by Tapan Sen, Padmanabhan, Basudev Acharia, Jibon Roy and others.

(Inputs by Manas Kumar Mukherjee, Secretary, AICWF)