The 8th national conference of Steel Workers’ Federation of India was held at Bhanja Bhawan in Rourkela from 7th to 9th December 2012.
447 delegates from 43 affiliated units of SWFI spread over 6 states of India attended this conference. These 43 unions include permanent and contractor workers unions from public and private sector steel plants, mines, offices etc.
After garlanding to Martyrs Column, on 7th December the conference was inaugurated by Jibon Roy, secretary, CITU.
The discussion papers were in two parts – ‘Global economic crisis, its effect on Indian steel industry and the need to build stronger organisation among public and private sector steel workers’ and ‘General secretary’s report on organisation”. 53 delegates took part in the discussion and pledged to build a strong class based organisation among steel workers under the leadership of SWFI and CITU.
Delegates expressed their deep satisfaction about the successful struggles of steel workers on several issues including against disinvestment of SAIL and Vizag, the anti-worker wage agreement, annual bonus, illogical perquisite tax, export of iron ore etc. It was also pointed out that developing a broad based united front of major trade unions on important issues was another important success of steel workers.
Basudev Acharia, vice president of CITU spoke on the growing attacks on the working class through successive decisions of the government including FDI in retail trade. The discussion was summed up by P K Das, general secretary of Steel Workers’ Federation of India. Tapan Sen, general secretary of CITU made the concluding speech in the conference and emphasised the need to make the two day country wide general strike on 20- 21 February a grand success.
Rourkela steel city witnessed a historic 2 km massive rally of more than 5000. In addition to the workers, local people, men and women participated in the rally carrying red flags, raising slogans, as well as dancing and singing to join the mass meeting on 8th December evening. Tapan Sen, Basudev Acharia, PK Das along with Lambodar Nayak, president and Bishnu Mohanty, general secretary of Odisha state committee of CITU addressed the gathering. A young workers’ meeting was arranged for open discussion with 340 participants in same venue on 9th December in which Tapan Sen, PK Das and Bishnu Mohanty participated. Cultural functions including Odissi and folk dances, body building competitions etc were organised y the reception committee every evening.
Rourkela and SWFI HQ at the leadership of Lalit Mishra, his team and help from Kerala comrades arranged a beautiful exhibition with rare photographs to display brutality of imperialist wars, cases of corruption at centre, price rise, and of the comrades who gave their lives for steel workers’ struggles and the SWFI conferences. Thousands of local people visited this photo gallery during the 4 days.
The conference unanimously elected a 125 member working committee with Tapan Sen as president, Ajit Mukherjee as working president, P K Das as general secretary and Swapan Sarkar as treasurer.
The Rourkela unit of the SWFI and Sundergarh district committee of CITU made excellent arrangements for the conference. The entire expenditure was met through door to door collection of funds from the permanent, contractor and unorganized workers of the Rourkela Steel Plant, the mines workers and people in general. This conference not only added strength to the organisation among steel workers in Rourkela but impacted the entire working class in the state.
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