STRIKE WORK ON 20TH AUGUST AGAINST THE ANTI-WORKER POLICES OF THE UPA GOVT.

The UPA Government, close on the heels of the decision to move forward on the dangerous Indo-US nuclear accord, has announced that the pension funds of the workers and employees would now be opened to private players vindicating the apprehensions of the working class that its moves would be diverted for investments in the market. The British held banking corporation, HSBC, Reliance has been short listed by the government to manage the pension funds of the workers & employees. This step by the Central Government is another of those anti-worker measures that has adverse repercussions on social security of the working class. After the recent drama in the parliament culminating in the UPA winning the ‘trust vote’, the Finance Minister Mr. Chidambaram reiterated assertively that the government would go full steam on economic reforms, that are playing havoc with the lives of the toiling masses of this country.

         The UPA government is wallowing in the glory of ‘economic growth’, a distorted one at that, while inflation has reached the double digit. There is this so-called 8,9 percent growth amidst severe agrarian crisis, there is this so-called growth in the midst of unprecedented price-rise, there is this so-called growth in the midst of the rising tide of unemployment under the regime of the imperialist sponsored economic reforms. The limited public distribution system (PDS) the country had, is dismantled and speculators rule the roost making the lives of the common people unbearable. It is in the service of these speculators and the big business, which has entered retail trade that the government has allowed the obnoxious future and forward trading in essentials.

         The economic reforms policies implemented by all the successive governments at the center in the country and in the states since the last seventeen years have had serious adverse impacts on the working class and on other toiling people. There has been a steady decrease in employment on regular basis and non-permanent employment is on the rise with contractualisation and casualisation of workforce in the industrial and service sectors of the economy becoming a common feature. The drive by the imperialists and native big capital is to accumulate more and more profits and this is sought to be realized by cutting costs of production which is done by depressing the wages of workers. The growth of non-permanent employment structures in the economy is an instrument not only to realize more profits by capital but also to create a workforce that is bereft of any security vulnerable to attacks. It is in tune with this principle that the Sixth Pay Commission has recommended outsourcing and contractualisation in the government departments apart from recommending a wage structure that is negatively discriminatory against the majority workforce in the government sector.

          As it is, a large majority of the workforce in the country does not enjoy whatever little benefits the labour laws guarantee with employers brazenly denying the same to the workers. A common feature in the country is the utter failure of the governments in enforcing the labour laws and bringing to book the errant employers. The fact that implementation of labour laws has become one major demand of the trade unions speaks volumes on  the nature of the enforcement agency of the governments. The non-implementation of labour laws is now being sought to be legitimized by the creation of  vast islands of SEZs where capital would enjoy exclusive hegemony.

         It is well known that a large majority of the workforce in the country is in the unorganized sectors of the economy deprived of any statutory benefits and social security. The Unorganised Sector Workers Social Security Bill, ostensibly meant to provide social security to this large work force is yet another of those measures that is not only cosmetic but leaves out a vast pool of workers from its ambit. While the government in line with policy prescriptions of the World Bank has stopped recruitments to government services, privatization of and disinvestments in public sector undertakings continue. In many of the PSUs, the period of wage agreements have been extended to ten years from five years to the disadvantage of the working class.

         In a word all the policies of the UPA government are characterized by their anti-people and anti-worker bias that need to be opposed and fought. They are all essentially in the service of foreign and native big capital, the big landowners and under the oft chanted mantra of economic growth are the hard realities of increasing unemployment, unprecedented price-rise, uprooting the marginal and the poor from their lands, curtailing the rights of the working class.

 The IFTU calls upon the working class to resist these policies and their manifestations and join in the All-India General Strike on 20^th August.