The 13th Conference of CITU is taking place in the background of serious challenges before the working class movement thrown up by the present politico-economic situation. In the post Parliamentary elections situation, in the background of weakening of the Left forces in Parliament, the ruling combination led by Congress has become more desperate to push through the neoliberal policies of total deregulation hitherto hurdled by the Left and the working class movement during the UPA-I regime. On the other hand, the same desperation is also being demonstrated in the hot pursuit of building a wide-ranging strategic alliance with the US imperialist power by the UPA-II regime much to the detriment of our self reliance and sovereignty. Particularly after the outbreak of the global economic crisis inflicting a severe recession on their economy and financial system, it has become all the more urgent for the US imperialist power to make the ruling combine in India to capitulate to the US strategic designs faster and more comprehensively.The Left forces in the country are the only opposition to such pro-imperialist and anti-national designs of the ruling class and the working class movement is the lifeline and manifestation of such opposition. And the post elections scenario in the country is witnessing the hell bent effort of the forces of right reaction to engineer grievous all round attack on the Left through administration, media and all the agencies of capitalist order. The attack is concentrated more on its strongest bastion, West Bengal which is taking both the routes of malicious campaign through media network and also physical and murderous attack on the Left organisations through gang-up of right-reaction-ultra Left combine.
Thus, it is now the biggest challenge before the working class movement to overcome the weakening of the Left inside Parliament to mount stouter opposition to imperialist designs and neoliberal order through massive mobilisation of the toiling people outside against every anti-people move in the economic and political front.
SET BACK IN GENERAL ELECTIONS
The severe setback for the Left forces, particularly in their traditional strongholds, in the 15th Lok Sabha elections has to be taken note of and appropriately analysed. This brought forth a serious challenge not only for the working class movement but the entire progressive movement as well with the US imperialist intervention and their handiwork becoming more aggressive in pushing the correlation of political forces in the country in a more rightward direction.
This has also led to alarming trend of ‘corporatisation of politics’ in India where big corporates and their captive media are trying to fix the agenda of the nation in nexus with bourgeois political parties. The use of unprecedented money power in recent assembly and parliament elections and presence of a huge number of “crore-paties” (354 in Lok Sabha only) in the legislatures of different levels is an ominous trend which can make mockery of democratic polity.
In sum and substance, basic issues of the working class, viz., price-rise, spectre of looming joblosses, wage-cut and deteriorating working conditions because of global recession, disinvestments, contractorisation & outsourcing, deregulation of financial and petroleum sector, FDI in retail, insurance, telecom, banks, pension sector and defence etc affecting the workers as well as the nation at large could not be effectively put in the political agenda of the nation during election. This gave opportunity to bourgeois parties and the ruling class in particular to ensure this “labour not on the agenda” scenario during the election.
ONSLAUGHT AGAINST THE LEFT FORCES
After election-results and the set-back of the Left parties in the same, the physical offensive against the Left forces has increased particularly in West Bengal and already hundreds of comrades laid down their lives braving the brutal attack of the Trinamool-Maoist combine. The so called Maoists in India who have refused to abandon the path of ruthless acts of terror and individual assassination, have since long been indulging in nefarious activities like extortion, robbery and money laundering. They have forged links with political parties with different hues for patronage and protection in states like AP, Bihar Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh where they have been found threatening or even killing candidates of one political outfits on behalf of another and also indulging in booth-capturing at the time of elections. In West Bengal, they have found a willing ally in the Trinamool Congress. The Maoist leaders have confirmed that this nexus has been in operation since the Nandigram episode in 2007.
Number of comrades killed by these attacks have already crossed several hundreds since the election results have been declared and almost every day the number is increasing. Union offices are being burnt, looted and even captured in many places by the Trinamool-hoodlums and in many areas leading trade union comrades and comrades from other mass organisations are being murderously attacked. This anti-Left gang-up has been trying to drive away our supporters from many areas through armed onslaught with the design of creating many Left-free zones through unleashing terror, extortion, forcible fines etc on the common people. Our comrades have been trying to build up resistance to such annihilation campaign against the Left. But it is not a battle to be fought by them alone.
We must note that the attack on the Left forces is synonymous to the attack on the working class. It is the foremost task of the working class movement of the country to stand firmly with their comrades in West Bengal in their struggle to defend the fortress of the working class and democratic movement and unleash a solidarity campaign throughout the country to combat the attack of the reactionary forces and the misinformation campaign by the media.
PRICE RISE
The intervening period since 12th Conference of CITU has been a period of continuing rise in the prices of essential commodities. At the initial period since the last quarter of 2007 or early 2008, rise in the prices of essential commodities, particularly the food items was accompanied by a low inflation rate calculated on the wholesale price indices where weightage of food items and other essentials is quite lo. Even during the period when the general inflation rate was 4 to 5% the food-price inflation rate was more than 8%. But gradually with the passage of time, in the face of shameless indifference of the ruling polity to contain the price-rise of essentials, the general rate of inflation has also shot up and is now approaching double digit level as the food-price inflation is approaching 19 per cent or more.
The price movement during last three years clearly revealed that the ongoing price rise is not a seasonal nor a cyclical phenomenon but maps out a continuous upward spiral. This is also not merely because of the demand-supply gap of the food grains and essential commodities in the market. This is basically fuelled by the speculation friendly policy of the Govt to allow the big landlord/traders combine a windfall gains out of deprivation and hunger of both the major section of agricultural producers as well as the mass of common consumers. This has been further facilitated by the so called targeted public distribution system which excluded mass of poor from the purview of PDS owing to faulty parameter of poverty line and gross administrative failure. Continuity of agrarian crisis reflecting the disastrous effect on peasant agriculture and agricultural productivity led to decline in agricultural production creating shortage and threatening food security besides aggravating price rise to the benefit of traders and big-landlord/business combine.
The working class movement has raised the concrete demand for universalisation of public distribution system to supply 25 essential commodities at subsidised price and complete ban on futures trading on the essential commodities as the only avenue to contain present phenomenon of continuously rising prices. Entire trade union movement irrespective of affiliations are united behind this demand. As per estimate, the cost of universalisation of public distribution system is at best Rs 1,70,000 crore a year which is much less than the revenues foregone by the Govt in favour of handful of big businessmen amounting to Rs 5 lakh crore in 2009-10.
UNION BUDGET 2010-11
The Union Budget 2010-11 is also expression of shameless bias in favour of the rich and corporates by the Govt completely unconcerned about the conditions of the mass of the people. In continuity with its policy of remaining captive to the interests of big capitalists, the budget doled out concessions in direct tax mostly to the big business lobby to the tune of Rs 26000 crore while extracting from the common people Rs 60000/-through indirect tax-excise and customs duty. Food subsidy has been reduced by over Rs. 400 crore despite the commitment to enact a food security legislation. Fertiliser subsidy has also been cut by a whopping Rs. 3000 crore from what was spent last year. These moves to reduce subsidies in the name of targetting comes at a time when inflation is galloping and agricultural output growth has become negative.
The anti-people approach of the Government in reducing subsidies was laid bare in the Economic survey, which has prescribed the dismantling of the PDS and initiating a “coupon system” for food and fertilisers. Moreover the so called Nutrient based scheme (NBS), besides increasing and deregulating the prices of all types of fertlisers is specifically designed to push up the profits of fertilizer manufactures/importers and lead to higher cost of production of all agriculture products. Added to this has been the proposed cess of Rs. 50 per tonne on coal which would not only increase the price of coal but also the price of electricity which is another major input for agriculture. With increase in price of agriculture inputs like fertilizer, diesel and fuel, the food security of the country is being put in jeopardy.
Budget displayed a tokenism and crude joke as well while allocating only Rs 1000 crore for the Social Security Fund for 47 crore workers of the unorganised sector. At the same time the budget speech by the finance minister did not miss to mention about the restrictive conditionality of “below-poverty-line” in this respect which itself excludes 90 per cent of the unorganized sector workers from the purview of such social security benefit. Similarly budget totally ignored the plight of 2 million anganwadi employees and need for universalisation of the ICDS scheme by way of making meagre increase of Rs 538 crore in allocation compared to revised estimate of last year.
Finance Minister’s statement that disinvestment in PSUs would lead to expansion of peoples’ ownership in PSUs is nothing but a false pretext designed to befool the people. Overwhelming majority of shares disinvested in PSUs has gone corporates, FIIs and financial institutions while a very negligible fraction of shares sold have gone to individuals.
ATTACK ON LABOUR RIGHTS
Neoliberal economic order brought with it a repressive labour regime sponsored and promoted from the seat of governance. The Governance worth its name is supposed to put in place a rule of law for the entire society. But under neoliberalism, violations of labour laws is being promoted and sponsored through Govt-employer combine to start with to finally ensure altogether overhauling or change of the pre-liberalisation labour laws in favour of the employers. The rate of unemployment and underemployment has been increasing to alarming proportions. Organised sector employment is shrinking and whatever new employment is generated in the extremely low paid jobs with extremely fragile working conditions. All labour laws, specially pertaining to the working hours, minimum wages, maintenance of employment registers, PF, ESI, deployment of contract labour etc are blatantly violated. In fact, more than 90% of the conflicts and industrial disputes in the organised sector are related to the implementation of basic labour laws. The labour law implementation machinery has become totally ineffective in most of the states as well as at the central level.
In this backdrop, the corporate-captive Govt of the day has been working overtime to completely overhaul the existing labour laws to establish the employers’ Raj in the workplaces. The government of India has already introduced a bill in Parliament, which seeks to exempt the employers of all establishments employing up to 40 workers from their obligation to submit regular returns to the labour department and maintain employment registers with all the details required as per the existing law. This means that the employers in more than 60% of manufacturing and service establishments will be allowed to blatantly ignore all labour laws. The bill could not be taken up for discussion because of the resistance by the Left MPs. But it is still alive and pending for being considered at an opportune time. The fact is that, under the neo liberal regime, the government itself is promoting labour law violations and then seeks to legalise them. Therefore, many more such bills are in the offing which aim at dismantling whatever little protection is being enjoyed by the working class.
CONTRACTORISATION AND CASUALISATION OF WORKFORCE
Banishing the very concept of regular employment is the strategy with which capitalism has been operating under neoliberal order. Already, the share of contract and casual workforce in total organised sector workforce has become more than 70 per cent taking the private and public sector together. In public sector itself, it has almost crossed the 50 per cent mark. This phenomenon, besides intensifying the exploitation of workers, has severely impacting upon the trade union rights and movement. The capitalists’ project of making a trade union-free workplace is being sought to be achieved through a process of desperate contractorisation, casualisation and outsourcing.
The neoliberal economic order operating under the stewardship of Finance Capital is leading to concentration of wealth on the one hand and intensification of exploitation and extraction of surplus value through indirectification and increasing fragility of employment relations. The extremely mobile as well as liquid character of finance capital at the helm of affairs is thus getting reflected in extreme fragility of employment patterns and employer employee relationship which must be taken note of.
UNORGANISED SECTOR –MASSIVE INFORMALISATION OF THE WORKFORCE
The unorganised sector continues to expand under the neoliberal regime. It is estimated that 94% of the total workforce in our country is in the unorganised sector. The whole purpose is to transform the workforce into a right-less and protection-less entity. As per estimates by experts this 94% of the workforce contribute around 65% of the GDP and in return they do not get back even 1 per cent as social security while the wages paid to them is a very miniscule percentage of the value created by them. They are the most exploited section among the country’s workforce.
The allocation made in the recent budget for Unorganised Workers’ Welfare Fund does not cover even 1 per cent of those below official poverty line. Though the National Social Security Board constituted under the Act has unanimously recommended that the BPL condition should be removed for coverage, the government has not responded positively.
JOINT CAMPAIGN AND OUR APPROACH TO BROADEN THE UNITY
In this respect we have to seriously introspect our approach in developing unity at the workplace/unit level. Inter-union rivalry and antagonism, in a scenario of multiplicity of trade unions, generally dominates over the urge for unity at the enterprise level. The concern for class unity must make our unions demarcate themselves in such a scenario of rivalry and antagonism.
We have to expose the anti-worker, anti-struggle approach of other reformist unions through our call for unity in support of just demands of the workers, by developing unified understanding among the mass of the workers on the correct class oriented approach towards the issues facing them and rallying the workers in that direction. This will keep the movement in track and at the same time create compulsion for other unions to rally round the idea of united struggle. The recent experience of coal and steel workers’ movement is an example of successful exercise of such strategy of demarcation and unity adopted by CITU.
Moreover, we must note that the unity of the class, we are talking about, is not just the unity of the leadership of different trade unions at the top while at the bottom their affiliates are falling apart. Unity is not for unity’s sake but for united action with a class approach. Condition for such unity has to be built up from below through independent campaign reaching the entire workforce.
FIGHT AGAINST THE DIVISIVE FORCES—COMMUNALISM, CASTEISM AND PAROCHIALISM
Our endeavour for unifying the class and the people must prioritise on building the capacity and consciousness at all levels of the organisation to fight against all kinds of divisive and disruptive forces, the present class divided society is breeding everyday. The rise of communal and divisive forces in the socio-political scenario since late eighties has posed a serious challenge to our efforts for unifying the working class and the toiling people in general. The communal forces led by RSS-BJP bandwagon has been actively pursuing their communal agenda and they have become more desperate in doing so in the face of their electoral defeat on the one hand and their internal squabbles on the other.
The menace of casteism is of serious concern. Problems arising out of casteism have also posed a severe challenge to the working class unity, weakening the trade union movement. This is a problem inherited from the old feudal socio-economic order. It perpetuated the caste system and the social oppression associated with it. The task before the working class movement is to make conscious and consistent efforts to channelise the growing assertion among the oppressed castes towards class-consciousness. This makes it incumbent on the trade union movement to take up the cause of social justice and lead the struggle against social oppression on a priority basis.
In the background of severe economic crisis, parochial forces are also raising their heads in most ugly manner as reflected in different parts of the country in different manners. The attack on the examinees and candidates for interview from Bihar in Maharashtra and Assam, on the Bengali speaking migrant workers in Maharashtra and Rajasthan and recent violent outbreak of so called Marathi chauvinist forces in different part of Maharashtra are some of manifestations which also acted in casting a disruptive impact on the unity of the people and must be construed as a big challenge before the working class movement.
THE TASKS AHEAD
• Intensify struggles to reverse the neoliberal economic policies and resist its onslaught on the working class and the people
• Intensify and widen solidarity actions in support of the struggles of the working class and other sections of the society in various parts of the country
• Organise solidarity with the workers and democratic people of West Bengal in their struggle against the murderous attack and violence by the so called Maoist-TMC Combine
• Raise the consciousness to fight against the imperialist offensives of all hues
• Organise regular campaign against communalism and all kinds of divisive forces to defend the unity of the people
• Launch powerful struggles and mobilisations demanding implementation of labour laws and fight back the Govt’s move to dismantle and overhaul labour laws in favour of employers’ class.
• Organise nation wide campaign demanding ‘Right to Work as a Fundamental Right’; intensify campaign for Employment Guarantee Act for urban areas; intervene to ensure proper implementation of the NREGA.
• Make efforts to develop united campaigns and struggles of all the exploited sections of the society including the agricultural workers and peasants; intensify efforts to revitalise the National Platform of Mass Organisation by developing joint activities with our fraternal mass organisations to start with
• Make efforts to develop awareness among the CITU cadres and activists on the inadequacies of the capitalist system in solving the basic problems of humanity and the role of the working class in affecting a change in policies
• Intensify efforts to organise the contract, casual workers etc in the organised sector
• Prioritise organising workers in the organised sector, particularly the key sectors
• Decide state wise priorities for organising the workers in the unorganised sector, allot suitable cadres and form trade/ segment wise unions
• Concentrate on development of cadres with continuous efforts to raise their capabilities and efficiency through regular trade union classes, workshops etc. Ensure effective functioning of P Ramamurti Institute for Trade Union Education at the earliest
• Pay special attention to organise working women and promote them to the leadership positions
• Reorient our work as per the guidelines in the ‘Bhubaneswar Document’ on organisation; Organise a national workshop on organisation to review its implementation and update
• Strengthen the CITU centres at the national as well as state levels wherever necessary to ensure effective discharging of the responsibilities
• Fulfil the target of achieving membership of 75 lakhs by the time of the next conference
Source: www.citucentre.org
No comments:
Post a Comment