The General Council of CITU, which concluded in Nasik on 11th January 2011, gave a clarion call to the working class of the country to intensify the united fight against the anti worker and anti people policies of the UPA II government. It also decided to launch an intensive independent campaign against the rightward shift in the policies pursued by the ruling classes and on the need to strengthen the Left to safeguard the rights of the working people.
The CITU General Council met in Prabhakar Sanzgiri Nagar (Nasik) from 8-11 January. The venue of the meeting was named after the legendary leader of the working class and women’s movement, Ahilya Rangnekar. 269 members (including 27 women) from all over the country attended the meeting, which started with the hoisting of the red flag of CITU by its President AK Padmanabhan.
A well attended inaugural session was held outside the district committee office of CITU. In his Presidential address AK Padmanabhan observed that the first decade of this century was witnessing a severe crisis of the capitalist system. Despite the talk of recovery, the crisis continues to impact the economies of many countries including the advanced capitalist countries. Many developed countries, which have extended huge bail out packages to the corporates and incurred fiscal deficits, are now curtailing the hard won rights of the workers in the name of austerity measures. Wage cuts, reduction in Pension benefits, reductions in public employment are being imposed on the working class in several countries including Germany, France, Italy, UK, Greece, Spain, Portugal etc.
The working class has been resisting these measures with massive struggles including strikes. Waves of strikes and massive demonstrations took place in Greece, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, England, Belgium, Bulgaria, Austria etc with the slogan ‘We will not pay for their crimes’. More than 50,000 students joined the demonstrations in London. In U.S., more than 200000 people marched through Washington streets on 2nd October demanding Jobs, Peace and Justice.
While the working people are continuing their struggles and militant movements, the political spectrum is moving towards the right in many of these countries. The resurgence of rightist forces, including the neo Nazis, in many of these countries has ominous portents for the working class and democratic movements in the world. Unless the working class is able to ideologically reorient its movement and organisation, the present day challenges cannot be faced effectively.
The CITU President stated that serious resentment of the working class against the policies of the government was evident in the unprecedented success of the all India general strike on 7th September. This unity has to be carried forward to further intensify struggles to reverse the policies. The working class has also to address social issues like untouchability, discrimination against women etc that prevail even today.
Tapan Sen, placing the General Secretary’s report, dealt with the present political and economic situation in the country, outlined the experiences of various struggles in different parts of the country and proposed the future tasks to strengthen the joint movement as well as independent campaigns of CITU. The implementation of the Bhubaneswar Document on organisation, adopted around 17 years ago, was also reviewed in a separate session of the General Council.
The general secretary drew the attention of the members to the increasing capitulation of the ruling classes to US pressure at all levels – economic, political and foreign policy. It is only the Left parties that have been strongly opposing such abject surrender to US imperialism and raising their voice in defence of the self reliance and sovereignty of the country and the rights of the working people. The Left led governments in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura have been taking various pro people measures despite the serious financial constraints. These are precisely the reasons for the attacks on the Left with overt and covert support from imperialism, which has to be exposed through a wide campaign by the CITU all over the country. It is the responsibility of the working class movement to protect the Left, and CITU must shoulder this responsibility.
Taking a serious view of the institutionalisation of corruption under the neoliberal regime, the report noted that almost all the non Left parties were involved in the scams that have been surfacing on a regular basis in the last few months. Central Ministers, Chief Ministers and Ministers in various states, Members of Parliament and state legislatures, members of the judiciary, bureaucrats at various levels, police officials and even high officers of the defence forces are involved in these scandals. Every pillar of the democratic system has been corroded.
The report expressed serious concern over the relentless price rise of all the essential commodities and asserted that this was not something related to demand and supply but was something deliberately promoted by the neo liberal policy regime, by dismantling the public distribution system and promoting speculative trade in commodity markets. The decision to deregulate petrol prices and the subsequent rise in petrol prices six times in six months, the hefty hike in diesel and petrol prices have also contributed to the price rise. The disinvestment process which was halted due to the opposition of the Left parties has been fast tracked under the UPA II rule.
The report emphasised that under the neoliberal regime, the workers’ share in value addition is continuously being suppressed. As per the Annual Survey of Industries, the share of wages to gross value added declined from 20.5% in 1991 – 92 to 9.2% in 2007 – 08, while the share of profits increased from 14.5% to 53.8% during the same period. A survey of Indian Private Corporate Houses made by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy noted that gross profit as percentage of total wage cost rose from 44% in 2001 to 176% in 2008.
The government is consciously promoting violation of labour laws. The collusion of the government machinery and the employers was glaringly visible in the recent struggles led by CITU in Foxconn, Hyundai, BYD, Nokia and several other private establishments in Tamil Nadu and Gurgaon in Haryana. In Allied Nippon in Ghaziabad a local hoodlum was appointed manager to intimidate workers. While this is the reality, the government seeks to legalise these violations through liberal exemptions to large sections of establishments.
It was in this scenario that the working class responded in a magnificent manner to the joint call of the trade unions for the all India general strike on 7th September, on the five point charter of demands. The participation of INTUC in the joint action enthused the workers. There were many struggles by workers in different parts of the country to protect their rights and working conditions during this period which reflects their determination to resist these attacks. The CITU must take up an extensive and intensive campaign to take the five point charter of demands to the workers to mobilise the maximum number of workers in the ‘March to Parliament’ on 23rd February 2011.
ON ORGANISATION
The report on the review of organisation based on the Bhubaneswar Document recommendations, which was presented separately, noted the need to convert the increasing influence of CITU into its organisational strength by taking necessary measures that include planned activities, expanding democratic functioning and conscious efforts at cadre development. The importance of organising the workers in the organised sector, particularly in the organised private sector, contract workers and others in informal employment relations in the organised sector was emphasised The report also laid stress on overcoming the uneven development of CITU.
36 Members representing all the state committees and industrial federations present spoke on both the reports and on the efforts that were going on for the mobilisation for the 23rd February programme. They said that the campaign was receiving a very enthusiastic response from the workers and expressed the confidence that the targets for mobilisation would be surpassed. Later both the reports, along with the report of the credentials committee placed by CITU treasurer Ranjana Nirula, were adopted unanimously.
The General Council called upon the working class to carefully observe the response of the government in its Budget proposals and organise massive demonstrations all over the country immediately, if the demands of the workers and the people are not met.
The General Council reiterated the decision of mobilising working women in large numbers on 8th March 2011, the conclusion of the Centenary of International Women’s Day, at the state and district capitals to highlight the demands of equal wages, maternity benefits and crèche, 8 hours work, reservation for women in legislative bodies, and amendments to the Sexual Harassment Bill introduced by the government in Parliament. It has decided to publish a booklet on the occasion of the conclusion of the IWD centenary. The proposal of the CITU secretariat to restart ‘Kamkaji Mahila’ as a quarterly journal in Hindi, focussing on the issues of working women, replacing the present Hindi ‘Patrika’, was endorsed by the General Council.
The General Council also decided to conduct a massive campaign against the SEZ policy of the government, on the EPF Pension and against the unprecedented. It called upon all its state committees and industrial federations to organise a nation wide campaign to expose the unholy nexus between the ruling class parties, the corporates and sections of the corporate media and on the need to strengthen the Left from 21 – 27 March 2011.
The CITU General Council unanimously adopted a resolution placed by its secretary Swadesh Dev Roye and supported by Sukomal Sen, vice president of the CITU, proposing that CITU become an affiliate of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU). It has decided to send a delegation to participate in the WFTU Congress scheduled in April 2011 in Athens in Greece.
An impressive public meeting was organised by the Maharashtra state committee of CITU on 8th January in which thousands of workers from different industries, a large number of them women, participated. The meeting was addressed by AK Padmanabhan, Tapan Sen, Hemalata, KL Bajaj, vice president, Adam Master, president and Dr KL Karad, general secretary of the Maharashtra state committee of CITU. Kavita Rout, the gold medal winner in 10 km marathon in the recent Delhi Commonwealth games and her coach Jitendra Singh and a young differently abled boy who won several awards in swimming, despite physical deformities in both hands since birth, were felicitated in the public meeting.
The CITU expressed its gratitude to the working class and people of Nasik, and the Maharashtra state committee and Nasik district committees of CITU, who extended all support for the successful and smooth conduct of its General Council meeting.
Courtesy: www.citucentre.org/
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