The 5th May Coal workers’ Strike against disinvestment has attained a new land mark both in participation and consciousness. In true sense this has been an industry-based class action on policy question. This strike has been a great leap forward from pure trade unionism towards policy orientation. This is the first time that the main issue is not allowed to be crowded with miscellaneous demands.Workers who have struck work, whatever may be the percentage of participation, did it with a unity of purpose and wisdom. According to conservative estimate made at the Federation HQ the rate of strike would be between 55 to 60% and around 3 lakh miners including contractor workers joined the industrial action. This is much beyond the membership of CITU in coal industry.
Such struggle on policy issues leads to heightening of consciousness of the workers. It is also common experience that while leading such struggle, the leadership faces combined opposition from reformists from within and outside, management and the government. Serious pursuit of the struggle against disinvestment, or privatisation in the ultimate sense develops a platform serving multiple purposes. It heightens consciousness of the workers to a patriotic role, and helps in awakening people to unite with the workers’ struggle on the question of peoples’ right over public assets. Thus this struggle carries the workers to a new kind of unity breaking the barriers of stagnation to a higher plateau of enlightenment and consciousness.
Such struggles quite naturally have to advance facing serious hurdles created by the ruling class. They leave no stone unturned to create confusion at every stage to dechannelise the anger of workers against such disastrous policy regime. One such ploy is to project disinvestment as something different from and delinked with privatisation. A section of unions, more particularly a section of leadership willy-nilly allows themselves to fall prey to such ploy of the employers and the ruling class.
They become victims to a kind of opportunism as well in making a line up with the employers and the management overtly or covertly in such turning points. In such an eventuality a trade union leadership loyal and committed to class politics, has to take a forthright stand in defending the struggle and replying patiently to ill-designed arguments for deserting the struggle being advanced by that section of reformist/misguided leadership singing in tune with the management and government.
The 5th May strike by coal workers accounts for such a struggle which lambasted the alliance of convenience which was built up by the employers and the government to make the workers a party to their game of privatisation.
A philistine argument has been advanced that if the Coal India is not allowed to be listed in the share market, the Company would lose its Navaratna status. This has been a sinister attempt to play on a false-pride and a fake perception and that everything can be compromised for such Navaratna Status including sell-out of the company itself through gradual dilution of the character of its equity ownership.
Workers argued through strike action that all the assets, profit, pomp and prestige whichever the Coal India enjoys, are all the consequences of labour and owned by people. And hence the firm position of the workers against any move to dilute the peoples’ ownership embedded in the wholly owned public sector character can no way be ignored.
The popular response to 5th May strike has vindicated the position taken by coal workers. The message which has been focused in the strike is that if workers could bring some pride to Coal India, that can be retained not just by the temporary signboard of Navaratna but by maintaining the wholly owned public sector status of company symbolising undiluted peoples’ ownership of the most vital natural resources.
It is blamed that this strike of 5th May staged by CITU alone has hampered the spirit of unity which has developed at the national level in recent period amongst all the major national trade union centres. This is not correct. Rather backtracking by some of the federations from the unanimous strike decision in coal industry for fighting back the disinvestment move, taken from the joint convention held on 27th March 2010 at Ranchi despite the Minister firmly sticking to the decision of disinvestment of shares in Coal India, has severely hampered the unity for struggle against disinvestment.
Unity is not for unity’s sake, it is for struggle on common issues. Unity of trade unions at industry level is not meant for accepting employer’s decision for sticking to disinvestment in lieu of some insignificant concessions on certain miscellaneous issues.
Unity is not meant for making workers a party to the govt’s decision to pursue disinvestment on the untenable plea of retaining Navaratna Status. The Minutes of the meeting between the Coal Minister and the leadership of Five Federations held on 16-4-2010 and signed by the leadership of three federations with CITU and HMS leadership refusing to become a party to that exercise clearly reflected the fact. Signing that minutes was tantamount to surrendering the right to oppose disinvestment of shares up to 50 per cent by the concerned federations.
By backtracking from the united decision of the federations for three day’s strike in coal industry and signing the minutes, the concerned federations practically undermined and violated the unified understanding of the Central Trade Unions to which they were affiliated, to fight against disinvestment in PSUs at the national level. If the process for working together of the federations got a little disturbed in any manner in the Coal Industry, it is because certain leaders of some federations separated themselves from the general policy of their own central organiations and the consensus arrived earlier amongst the federations for three days strike against disinvestment in the background of consensus arrived at among all the central trade unions against disinvestment. Then who are the villains of unity?
In this context the nefarious ploy of the Govt to play the Navaratna card to facilitate disinvestment has to be understood. The original parameters designed by the Govt for granting Navaratna or Miniratna Status to PSUs were based on “rating under Memorandum of Understanding(MOU) system in three of the last five years ” in the PSUs. Such MOUs are entered into between the management of PSU and the concerned Ministry and the MOU parameters are basically based on physical and actual financial performance of the PSU under consideration and no way linked with either its listing in the stock market or its “stock market image”.
It is only in November 2006 such parameters of Navaratna and Miniratna status were unilaterally changed to include stock market capitalisation and (share) price-earning ratio etc just to facilitate disinvestment and privatisation. And now the Minister has been pleading for disinvestment of shares on the plea of maintaining Navaratna status.
The game plan is clear. Link Navaratna status with stock-market-listing and performance and then plead for disnvestment to retain Navaratna Status! Unfortunately some of the Federations fell a victim to this game plan owing to their misplaced anxiety on Navaratna status. If the public ownership status of Coal India is compromised through phased disinvestment, will the Navaratna status finally be retained? Fake pride and anxiety on Navaratna is making them to miss the wood for the tree!
The huge participation in the strike had made all the misinformation campaign about the withdrawal of strike carried by some of the federations with the active assistance of management fall absolutely flat. On the day before the strike, the employers provided vehicles to the strike breakers to campaign throughout the collieries in all the coal companies that CITU also has withdrawn the strike. Intensive SMS campaign was organised to push through lie-propaganda. But nothing could deter the mass of the workers joining the strike on 5th May 2010. And it is not only the workers having allegiance to CITU or AICWF. Workers irrespective of affiliations, from all federations joined the strike exploding all misinformation campaign.
As per reports received at the AICWF headquarters, in many of the backward areas like Rajmahal under CCL (Jharkhand), Basundhara and Talcher under Mahanadi coal fields (Orissa), workers themselves at their own initiative organised the strike. Strike in ECL was 85%, BCCL 70%, CCL at around 45%, North Eastern Coalfield at 70%, WCL 40%, SECL round 35% and 20% in NCL and on the average it was 60 per cent in all the Coal India mines. Even in Mahanadi Coal Mines which is mined mostly by contractor workers, there were substantial strike.
In Coal India HQ and other offices in Kolkata and Dhanbad the strike rate was 90% and similar is the strike situation in the units under CMPDIL. Most of the washeries were closed. In respect of production, transportation and washing of coal the entire system has been disrupted. Contractor workers’ participation was large in all the coal companies. The fraternity aspect of the strike also was important. It is reported that about 15% of the total working strength in Singareni had struck work in support of Coal India workers. On the whole it is assessed that strike could have been more widespread could the organisers reach all the ten thousand plus pitheads. Still then it must be concluded that workers enmasse, even those who did not take part in the strike due to confusion or hesitation arising out of union allegiance were sympathetic to the strike call. This signifies a greater unity on the issue of disinvestment at the grass root level.
Whatever happened has already happened. The strike of May 5 has given a clear message to the Govt of the day that coal workers will not accept disinvestment and backdoor privatisation through outsourcing of coal blocks lying down. The all in unity against disinvestment at the national level has cemented the situation further. All the federations in coal industry who already carry a tradition of all in united action in the coal industry for almost a decade now must rise above all misgivings and misunderstandings and unite for drawing the next course of action for thwarting the disinvestment move of the Govt in Coal Industry. The Coal workers have the potential strength and consciousness to successfully blockade the disinvestment process if all the Federations come together to fight back. CITU appeals to all the Federation to join hands in drawing the action plan at the earliest.
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