FIGHT PRICE RISE!!!

RESIST STATE VIOLENCE!!!

“The first and great necessity of the present to free labour of this country from capitalist slavery is the passing of a law by which 8 hours shall be the normal working day...”. This was the resolution in the Founding Convention of the National Labour Union in the U.S in 1866, and 20 years later, in the city of Chicago on 1^st May, the great outpouring of the workers demonstrated the resolve to attain the demand. Chicago became the epicentre of the struggle and on 3^rd May 1886, the capitalist gendarme attacked a meeting of the striking workers at the McCormick Reaper Factory in which 6 workers were killed. It is against this police brutality that workers held a meeting at the Hay Market which was peaceful and about to end when the police unleashed violence again, killing 4 workers. An incident of bomb throwing took place and the leaders of the workers’ movement were implicated and tried by the jury that sent Parson, Spies, Fischer and Engel to the gallows. Three years later in 1889, the First Congress of the Second International was held in Paris that set aside 1^st May as a day upon which the workers of the world were to fight for an 8-hour working day. And this struggle is inexorably linked to the struggle to end the system of wage slavery. On the occasion of the 124^th anniversary of May Day, IFTU salutes the Chicago martyrs and reiterates its pledge to continue the tradition of struggle against exploitation by capital.

In late 2008 when the U.S economy witnessed one of the worst crises since the Great Depression, resulting in massive unemployment, tremors of that shock were felt in India too, with many of the export-oriented units  dismissing thousands of workers from employment. While one of the main concerns of the working masses continues to be unemployment, contractualisation and wage depression, the grave issue of price rise has become a major and serious concern in the last two years. Of particular adverse impact on the common and working people has been the stupendous increase of prices of essential commodities like rice, wheat, sugar and vegetables. Food prices have never been so worse than the 1970s. Food inflation stood at 16.35% in March, pulses became dearer by over 31% and milk by 18.74%. The Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee while presenting the Union Budget that was marked by a slew of tax concessions to the corporate sector admitted that there could be marginal inflation as a result of his proposals. The hike in excise duties on petro-products further fuelled the price spiral of all essentials. While this phenomenal price rise cut into the meagre earnings of the working people, it is estimated that per capita calorie consumption declined. In fact, the number of hungry people during this period increased. The overall inflation rate hovering around 9.89% in March is expected to touch the double digit.

While the phenomenon of rising prices is systemic, the phenomenal hike in recent times is a consequence of “neo-liberal” policies of the UPA government. These policies that prised open the agriculture sector led to an adverse impact on food production. Allowing the corporate sector to enter the grain market, weakening the PDS, future trading in essentials etc, have all led to the present state of price rise, the agrarian crisis being at the root.

When the Finance Minister was giving the slew of concessions to the corporate sector amounting to Rs.80,000 crores in various forms, the Home Minister P. Chidambaram was trying to put into place an operation known as “Green Hunt”. Two years ago when the Prime Minister stated that “Left-wing extremism constituted the single largest internal security threat”, Chidambaram was the Finance Minister, in the service of the huge MNCs and native corporates. Stepping into the boots of the Home Ministry, he declared that this “internal threat” would be eliminated in three years through the “Green Hunt”, which again is in the service of the huge corporate businesses that are prising open the vast forests in the Central and Eastern parts of the country for minerals such as bauxite, iron, coal, etc. In order that the Tatas, Birlas, Poscos, Vedantas and their like corner these huge mineral-rich lands that are inhabited by tribals, the objective of this operation is to eliminate opposition and resistance to this corporate pillage and uproot the tribal population. It is estimated that nearly 3,00,000 tribals have been displaced from their lands in this state exercise.

In Chhattisgarh, a state-sponsored private armed force called the Salwa Judum is playing havoc with the lives of the tribals. It is reported that 30,000 tribals have been forced to leave their villages and live in “settlements” under the duress of the state. Like in the U.S, in the workers’ struggle for an 8-hour working day, the capitalists had private gangs called the Pinkertons to break workers’ struggles and indulge in physical assaults, corporate houses in the forest regions of Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have employed armed private security persons to force the tribals into submission. What is taking place in the tribal inhabited mineral rich forests of this country in the name of weeding out “left wing extremists” is in essence a war against the tribal populace to procure for the corporate bosses the mineral rich lands.In the process the violence perpetrated by the state snuffs out whatever little democratic spaces we have in this country and impinges upon the basic rights of the people.              

On the occasion of May Day IFTU Calls upon the working class to fight price rise and resist the increasing assaults on the rights of the people by the state.

National Committee

INDIAN FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS (IFTU)