The National Council meeting of AICCTU was held on 18-19 April 2008 at Rourkela, the steel city in Orissa. The meeting was presided over by a 5-member presidium comprising Comrades S. Kumaraswamy, Swapan Mukherjee, Subhash Sen, S Balasubramanium and R N Thakur. Comrade D.P. Buxi, PB member of CPI(ML), was also present in the meeting. The meeting began with 2-minute silence in the memory of Comrade Yogeshwar Gope, former President of AICCTU and other departed leaders.

The major decisions of the meeting include the following:

1. May Day- AICCTU has given a call to observe May Day preceded by a campaign which will focus on the demands to check skyrocketing price rice; strengthen PDS; immediate reversal of private trade in essential commodities and total crackdown on profiteers and hoarders; distribution of 25 essential commodities through PDS; declaring minimum wage recommended for lowest category of government employees by 6th CPC as the national floor level minimum wage including all sections of contract and unorganised sector workers as well as NREGA workers. Some of the other demands are - Enacting a comprehensive legislation in this session of Parliament for the unorganized sector workers; Immediate implementation of 5-year wage agreement in CPSUs; Declaring 200 days job for NREGA workers; Increase the minimum wage 5478/- as recommended by 6th CPC to 10,000/; Immediately come out with a plan to revive sick PSUs like Sindri Fertilizer, HEC, IDPL etc.,

2. 7th May Strike - AICCTU has given a call to actively participate in the 7th May strike of CPSUs focusing on the demands of: Immediate implementation of the 5-year wage agreement in CPSUs like coal, steel etc.; inclusion of contract labour of these units in the wage agreement; Contract labour in PSUs must be paid the minimum wage fixed for that particular sector; Stop outsourcing and privatization in CPSUs.

3. 7th National conference of AICCTU: will be held on 2-4 August 2008 in Chennai. Chennai will be named as Comrade Yogeshwar Gope Nagar and the Conference Hall will be named after Com. Pelliyappan.

4. The National Conference will be preceded by a campaign to observe 100 years of the first political strike by Indian working class in Mumbai against British imperialism, which will culminate in nationwide Rashtriya Sankalp Diwas on 23 July.

5. The founding National Conference to launch the National Federation for Construction Workers will be held on 28-29 June at Patna. 