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We Are All In This Together
Let us strike in unity on 8 January 2020
The last six months have seen
a marked intensification in the
attack on the working class
spearheaded by the passage of the
Code on Wages and the tabling of
the Code on Occupational Safety,
Health and Working Conditions and
the Code on Industrial Relations
(IR) in parliament. The IR Bill
introduced in the parliament on 28 th
November, apart from emasculating
workers’ rights on crucial issues, has
incorporated Fixed Term Employment
in the Code. The three codes along
with the Code on Social Security are
together aimed at diluting the
existing rights of workers that have
through long struggles come to be
enshrined in law. Along with attacking
the rights of workers, these codes
attempt to also centralise control
over decision-making on labour
issues from the concurrent list –
between the Union Labour Ministry
and the state governments - to the
office of the prime minister.
The BJP led government at the
centre has since 2014 unambiguously
declared that it is a government for
big business and the rich. Its policies
and actions have deepened the
structural slowdown of the economy.
The agrarian sector is reeling under
severe distress while industry is
marked by mass cut-backs in
production, closures and lay-offs
across sectors causing much harm
to farmers and workers.
Prescriptions offered by the
government at the centre to
alleviate the economic downturn
however are not intended to resolve
the distress of working people
caused by the economic crisis but
is aimed at giving relief to big
business, domestic and foreign by
legislating a corporate tax cut to the
tune of Rs.1.45 lakh croreand rolling
back the surcharge it levied on
January - 2020
foreign institutional investors not
registered as companies. These
measures have also drastically cut
government revenues to an extent
where the fiscal deficit in just six
months of the financial year has
reached 93% of the budgeted
estimate. The only way that the BJP
government plans to raise revenue
is through privatization of PSUs.
The government has been
desperately attempting to sell Air
India and the railways. While
declaring financial bailout for
private telephone companies like
Airtel,Vodafone-Idea, it is axing the
BSNL.It has permitted 100% FDI in
key sectors like coal and strategic
sectors like defence.No doubt, this
will only fuel the government’s
propensity to cut social expenditure.
The effort of the BJP government
to stick to its fiscal conservatism will
not allow for expansion of government
spending. Consequently, the crisis
of demand that country is
experiencing will continue unchecked
unless the government is forced to
change its priorities.
To cover its complete
mismanagement of the economy
that has led to a decline in overall
consumer spending in the country
for the first time in more than four
decades, the BJP government has
played its communal card to divide
working people across the country.
From passing the Triple Talaaq
legislation, to the proposal for the
Citizenship Amendment Bill, to the
disastrous National Register of
Citizens in Assam, to the proposal
of extending the NRC to the rest of
the country and finally to the
abrogation of Article 370 without
consulting the people of J&K or
even their elected representatives
and the bifurcation of the state into
two union territories. These divisive
moves have created an atmosphere
of hate that is fundamentally directed
against minorities and migrant
workers leading in many cases to
incidents of lynching. The recent
amendment to the Unlawful Activities
Prevention Act allows individuals to
be declared as terrorists and their
properties seized. This amendment
has been introduced by the
government more to act as a
deterrent for any form of dissent in
the country.
Only a militant and country
wide strike of the working class can
force this government to act in the
interest of the people and not in the
interest of corporations. Now is the
time for all trade unions across the
country, whether recognised by
government or not, to relay this
understanding through their most
powerful weapon, the general strike!
We should put pressure on the state
governments,particularly the non-
BJP governments not to implement
these anti-labour amendments.
We join the Central Trade
Union Organisations in demanding
an indexed National Minimum
Wage of Rs. 21,000 per month, a
government funded minimum
pension of Rs. 10,000 per month,
an effective employment guarantee
covering all urban and rural
households, implementation of
MGNREGS with an increased
number of days and increased
budgetary allocations, increased
public investment to mitigate rural
distress, remunerative prices as
per the Swaminathan Commission
recommendations for agricultural
produce with requisite procurement
facilities and farm loan waivers,
permanency of employment in
decent work, worker status for all
scheme workers as unanimously
contd. on page 4
5