(Text of AICCTU President S Kumarasamy’s Address in the Inaugural Session)

Comrades,

As we assemble here on 11.11.11, finance capital and corporate greed are put in the dock by the people in New York and other global citadels of capital. The oligarchs who pronounced the end of history are now facing the slogans, “bankers are bailed out, we are sold out”, “there is only one solution, that is revolution”. The Occupy Wall Street movement has taken place, when the American people seem to be thinking that capitalism is losing its ability to restructure and reconstitute itself. The agitation in its own way is taking an anti-capitalist turn, as capitalism’s economic legitimacy is losing its sheen. From our 8th National Conference, we welcome this fresh whiff of air and we dedicate ourselves to challenge corporate greed and control in India. We hail it and express solidarity with it in India by demanding “people’s right over people’s resources”.

But imperialism’s overreach in its war efforts is continuing. The war on terror is now rechristened as ‘humanitarian intervention.’ There were 40,000 bombings from the Libyan skies by Rafale fighters of France, by Euro fighters of the UK and by the Predators of the US. When Gaddafi was killed in violation of all international laws, Hillary gloated, “we came, we saw, he died.” The US Vice President Joe Biden points to the future: “In this case America spent 2 billion dollars and did not lose a single life. This is more the prescription for how to deal with this the world as we go forward than it has been in the past.” The geo political intentions of the US are spelt out by Paul Craig Roberts: “With Libya conquered, AFRICOM will start on other African countries, where China has energy and mineral investments. Where China brings Africa investments and gifts of infrastructure, Washington sends troops, bombs and military bases”.

We condemn the imperialist war on terror and its extension in the name of humanitarian intervention and regime change.

The US and its imperialist allies are busy planning their brand of regime change in Syria, Iran and Cuba. From our 8th Conference we declare that the Indian people and the toiling masses will stoutly oppose all imperialist and big brotherly interventions.

All institutions of the bourgeoisie in India are facing a credibility crisis. The judiciary, the parliament, and the seats of governance from the PMO to the BDO: all institutions are tainted with corruption. The Indian people are realizing that corruption is the essential bridge between bourgeois economics and bourgeois politics. The Congress-led UPA-II Government is corruption-ridden and crisis-ridden. The BJP and its NDA allies with their share of mining and other scams cannot convincingly take on the government at the centre. Anna Hazare type movements enter to fill in this void. The very situation is pregnant with possibilities for the fighting forces of the Left. Price rise, growing inequalities, state repression through AFSPA and UAPA, Operation Green Hunt and other measures to deny livelihood and democratic rights to the people while paving the way for the loot and plunder of the country’s resources, are bound to ignite the fire of people’s resistance struggles. AICCTU calls upon the working people to rise to the occasion and forcefully intervene in the situation, for left resurgence through people’s resistance.

The Indian TU movement is passing through a critical and crucial stage. It has its challenges. It has its opportunities. Take note of a few facts. In 2005 there were 227 strikes, and 229 lock outs and 300 lakh human days of production were lost. But in 2010, there were 79 strikes, 20 lockouts with 17 lakh human days lost. Have the workers got a better deal? Is the fighting spirit on the wane? Annual growth in labour productivity in India was 3.7 per cent in 1998 and it went up to 7.3% in 2007. It remained the same at 1.2% in 1998 and 2007 in the European Union, whereas in the US it declined from 2% in1998 to 1.2% in 2007. Net value added by the Indian worker in 1998–1999 was Rs.2 lakh and it went up to Rs. 6 Lakh in 2008–2009, whereas in the same period, wages as a proportion to net value added declined from 18% to 11%. When labour productivity has gone up, real wages have come down. As more wealth is created by socialized production and as it gets concentrated with a few billionaires, workers become poorer and the ranks of the poor swell.

How has it happened?

While the fall of the socialist bloc provided the ideological background, the relocation of the production of goods and services to countries with substantial surplus labour led to the decline of the organized TU movement in the US. In India, LPG policies launched an attack on collective bargaining. The organized permanent workers in the public and private sector were deprived of their control over production, by huge contractualisation, casualization and outsourcing. The withdrawal of the state was accompanied by an increase in the number of non-regular employees in the govt sector like ASHA worker, para-teachers and other honorarium and consolidated payment employees. The so called Nehruvian social contract was also thrown overboard while the market was allowed to hold sway over all aspects of the economy. The judiciary contributed with many retrograde judgments.

There were other changes taking place in Indian society. The deepening, all pervasive agrarian crisis, the uneven industrialization and urbanization and the huge development of a formal and informal service sector, all play a very big role in the quantitative and qualitative composition of the Indian working class.

From 1834 to 1937 there was a big wave of global migration. 82 lakh Chinese, 1.02 crore Italians and 1.8 crore British people migrated to other countries. In that period 3 crore Indians migrated, and some 64 lakhs could not return to their native land as they could not afford their return journey. Now with LPG policies in full swing, interstate and intra state migration is taking place on a large scale. The TU movement should stand up and defend the rights of migrant labour.

The neo-liberal state, which is marked by the increasing corporate clout over it, the conniving bureaucracy and the judiciary together are taking the country back to the pre-1926 period by refusing TU rights, in Gurgaon–Manesar, Sriperumbudur–Irungattukottai and other rising modern industrial centres.

The fighting flags of the working class have not been thrown to the ground. They have passed on to different hands. Old and new have joined hands to hold aloft the fighting flag. Workers at Pricol, Hyundai, Maruti, ASHA workers, Para teachers are the latest flag bearers. A very big contingent of the Indian working class, with no legal rights and with nothing to lose, has emerged. Here lie the challenges and opportunities.

The TU movement has to fight to push back the neo-liberal policies. It has to go on the offensive, demand amendments to existing laws, demand new laws and changed policies. The organized section of the working class has to organize its vast unorganized counterpart. Unionization must take place in residential areas. Millions and millions will have to be brought into the arena of class struggle and the TU movement. Only this can provide the Indian working class with striking power. The working class is to be politicized and the TUs are to be democratized. For this, newer methods and avenues have to be explored in creative and imaginative ways.

This is precisely the point on which Pricol workers led by AICCTU are charting a new course, braving tremendous odds and succeeding in gaining TU recognition while continuing their struggle for a law to provide for TU recognition.

Capitalist production relations are not eternal laws.

History will progress through class struggle.

AICCTU’s 8th National Conference dedicates itself to the task of moving history forward.

Boxes

Workers Speak 1

Construction and Readymix Cement Workers, Bangalore

Comrade Appanana, AICCTU activist from Bangalore, has been at the forefront of organising construction and readymix cement workers.

He says, “Most construction workers in Bangalore are migrants from other states. A major issue for them is the lack of a secure address and identity. In addition, they often face the wrath of locals. These workers live in rented homes and work for Rs 150 for 12-14 hours of work. Construction companies make them work the full 24 hours. Workers’ struggles have resulted in establishment of a Welfare Board. Our major issues of struggle today are for a benefit scheme after death; a scheme for medical treatment; and Rs 300 pension. The builders and contractors threaten the workers with dismissal if they join any union. AICCTU has united construction workers and readymix cement workers. We have around 5000 members in Bangalore, HD Kote, Harpanahalli and Gangawati.”

Anmol

Workers Speak 2

Contract Workers, Bhilai Steel Plant:

Narayan Sahu is a security guard, who was employed by Vivek Enterprises, a private security firm, for 3 years. “On November 1, I was terminated without any prior intimation. PF and ESI were deducted from my salary, but I received the PF slip of one just one year. No bonus or arrears were paid. The salary from the principal employer (BSP) is Rs 5600, but I received only Rs 4000. We enjoyed no holidays at all – not even on Sundays or festival days.”

Tulsidas Borkar is a technician who works at CRME in the BSP. “I am employed through RN Constructions. This contractor supplies contract workers who, in violation of the contract labour laws, work on core sectors of the BSP: Coke Oven, SMS1, MSDS, CRME, and Pump House.”

Hiralal was employed in HSCL on cutting/welding jobs, through a private contractor. “I worked for 6 years, but when I asked for minimum wages, I was removed. I initiated a legal battle through AICCTU, due to which I was reinstated in the job. I am paid just Rs 97 per day.”

P Chiranjiv works with a private contractor (who supplies labour to BSP and HSCL) for the past 5 years. “I worked in the BSP at SP-2, and my wage was Rs 95 per day. When I asked for a wage increase in 2010, I was terminated. Any worker associated with a union is immediately thrown out. I’m now fighting a case in the labour court.”

What emerges from these accounts is that the BSP, a public sector concern and supposed to be a model employer, is now exploiting contract labour for most of its core functions, flagrantly violating labour laws and industrial democracy. More than 22,000 contract workers are employed in the BSP, through around 427 private contractors. The BSP management and the contractor work hand in hand to exploit them. They came to know of AICCTU through some other workers, but were initially fearful of associating with a union. But they became convinced that AICCTU was committed to taking up contract workers’ issues, and now they’re determined to strengthen the union.

Sandeep Singh

Workers Speak 3

Sanitation workers, Bhilai

Velankani is a sanitation worker on contract with the Bhilai Nagar Nigam, and one of the leading activists in the AICCTU-affiliated union. Around 500 women and 700-80 men are similarly employed.

“We receive no medical benefits in case of injury, not any medical check-up or provisions for children’s education,” she says. “The contract can be suddenly terminated and workers laid off without explanation. So when we demand minimum wages, we’re laid off. The last time this happened, other workers were brought in to take our place – but we struggled to prevent this. After 6 months of struggle, the labour commissioner passed an order reinstating the workers. The minimum wage is Rs 170, and we used to get Rs 118 per day. Now, after being reinstated, we receive only Rs 110 a day.”

What problems do women workers face? Velankani says, “Women receive equal wages. But we do face several instances of sexual harassment. Patriarchal abuse by supervisors is common. Supervisors ask women to meet them privately and harass them – and if the latter refuse, they are victimised by being made to work in drains, or are suspended for 10 days. On one such occasion, we demonstrated at the Labour Commissioner’s, and we women beat up the supervisor in front of the Commissioner. We’ve got the confidence to do this now that we’re in the union and have a voice.”

How do women workers cope with the pressures of the home? Velankani says, “Husbands of the women workers also work. Some of the husbands are also in sanitation work and in our union; many others are in other jobs. They don’t mind sharing housework, which they do quite cheerfully. But they tend discourage and disapprove of women becoming active in the union and the hartals! Working for wages outside the home is one thing, but doing union work? That’s quite another, in their eyes! But we persuade them, speak to them, and they do change their attitude. I have six children, between 18 years and 7 years of age. My husband works in Raipur and can come home only once a week. I just know that I cannot live without the union work, and will do it come what may.”

Kavita

Workers Speak 4

Transport Workers, Kolkata

Balram Majhi is a leader of the Kolkata Tram Bus Driver Karamchari Simiti (CTC BDKS) affiliated to AICCTU.

Manjhi joined as a driver in 1994 at the princely salary of Rs 50 per day, with no other benefit, allowances or social security. “If there were no buses available on a day, it meant I got no work, and no salary. Since when I joined, till 2008, I received an annual increment of Rs 10! In 2008, I and other workers wrote letters to every union seeking support for our demand for an increase in wages. But the only union that responded was AICCTU.”

A series of militant actions followed. “Over a thousand workers staged a silent dharna at Raj Bhawan, Kolkata under the banner of AICCTU; seven thousand tram workers gave arresting in Jail Bharo Andolan soon after. In January 2009, 45 activists of CTC undertook an indefinite hunger strike. Within two days, the Labour Minister urged us to break the strike, promising to increase the wages and consider other demands. When the promises were not kept, CTC gheraoed the management. The gherao continued till 2 in the night, and 107 workers, including AICCTU leaders were arrested. Eventually the CTC succeeded in August 2009, in getting 1110 contract workers regularized on the condition that they had completed ten years of service as drivers. 1500 workers continue to be contractual and denied social security and gratuity.”

The union demanded that gratuity and pension be calculated from the day workers join work as contractual drivers, and not from the day they were made permanent. “We argued that we had spent our entire lives working as contract workers, and with only a short working life remaining now, we would be robbed of years of hard labour, if gratuity and pension were not to take that into account. I, for example, worked as a casual worker for 17 years, but have no gratuity to show for it.”

Another demand was that relatives of those who had died in service should be employed, as they had received no gratuity or pension after putting in years of service. Just before the 2010 state assembly elections, the ruling CPI(M) in order to present a worker friendly face, recruited 490 new workers who were made permanent immediately. The newly elected TMC government declared in November 2011 that workers would receive salaries on the first day of the month, but delays continue to be the norm. The CTC remains resolute in continuing the drivers’ struggle to its logical end.

Aslam

Workers Speak 5

Contract Workers, Damodar Valley Corporation, Koderma

The DVC project is a 1000 megawatt power plant set up in March 2008 in Koderma, Jharkhand. The project was set up on 1800 acre land, impacting 32 villages. The Vanjadi Visthapit Krantikari Morcha and the CPI(ML) launched a successful struggle for compensation for displaced peasants, and for 600 acres of banjar land, which had been rendered cultivable by the villagers through their labour.

When the plant was established, over 5000 workers from Maharashtra, UP, Bihar and West Bengal were recruited. AICCTU began to unionize the workers, with 2500 workers joining up.

Shyamdev Yadav, a contract worker employed in the DVC, says, “We began with a struggle for minimum wages. Initially, the payment was only Rs 99 per day but because of the struggle led by AICCTU—in which four of its leaders also went to jail—the wages were raised to Rs. 111. A hunger strike was successfully launched against the arrest of leading comrades. Soon after, the Jharkhand government announced the rate to be fixed at Rs. 131 as minimum wage. When this was not implemented, another hunger strike was held for three days, which resulted in the victory for workers.

“Then, in 2010, an accident in the plant left two workers dead and two injured. The trade union affiliated to the BJP cornered the compensation money. The CPI(ML) and AICCTU ensured that Rs. 9 lakhs was received by each worker. The BJP goons have time and again attacked Union leaders but have been rebuffed by the workers.”

Raj Kumar Paswan, another worker, says, “AICCTU demanded implementation of the central minimum wages act, which holds minimum wage to be Rs 165—and with retrospect effect, from the time of employment. This struggle clinched a major victory in August 2011 when the management and AICCTU reached an agreement for the release of arrears in three instalments. Sensing the growing power of AICCTU and workers’ unity and strength, the BJP MLA, who had been absent from the struggle throughout, entered the scene demanding that the arrears be paid in one go. This gave the management a leverage and use this as an excuse to shut down the plant last month.”

Shyamdev and Raj Kumar note that the workers’ struggle at DVC has gained strength from the support of local villagers, who had struggled for compensation. Now, workers too recently supported villagers in their struggle against the administration’s move to ban the collection of mica by locals, who use it as fuel. The administration declared it illegal mining and prohibited the poor villagers from collecting it for domestic use. A militant struggle by AICCTU and the Party ensured that the order was withdrawn.

It is a measure of the popularity and trust that the Party enjoys among the villagers that land has been given to the Party voluntarily to open an office by the villagers themselves.

Aslam

Workers Speak 6

ASHA Health Workers

In the 8th National Conference of AICCTU held in Bhilai, there was a significant participation of ASHA Health Workers, with delegates from Jharkhand, Bihar, Assam, and Uttarakhand. In course of the interaction, several common problems faced by the ASHA workers across different states came to the fore. They spoke of their pressing demands and also how they are trying to form organizations to carry forward their struggles. The most living problem that confronts them is the absence of security and transport while taking the pregnant women to the Health centres, particularly in remote areas and at odd hours. The other significant problems relate to the virtual denial their basic rights, remuneration and recognition: despite having to work virtually round the clock to care of the pregnant mother and child, they do not get the recognition of government employees, just a measly ‘honorarium’ in the name of salary, and absence of minimum facilities like a separate place for them to sit or rest in the hospitals and health centres.

Minurani Choudhury from Jharkhand said, “SAHIYA workers have significantly raised the awareness of the rural people about the importance of mothers’ health and child care, and people have also come to repose enormous confidence in us. But there is no safety and security in their workplace. Because of protest and assertiveness of the SAHIYA workers, health centres and hospitals have been forced to change their callous and insensitive attitude towards pregnant women observed earlier. However, SAHIYA workers from tribal communities who are less assertive continue to suffer discrimination. Though they manage to get full support from their families, local NGOs often become a major hurdle in their way of forming organization.”

Maya Hazarika, Padma Mauth, Tanuja Khonowal, Niha Kalita from Assam also reiterated the denial of security and dignity they face in the job. They have fought and forced the authorities to give cycles to the workers. They also enthusiastically emphasized the support and help they get from their families both for their profession as well as in their efforts to build their organization.

Sunita Bharti, and Poonam Mallick from Bihar said that they were not paid for their days of work in the pulse polio camp and also complained about non-co-operation from the ANM sisters. They recalled how the police and the government turned a blind eye towards a gruesome incident of rape and killing of a pregnant woman in 2008 while she was being escorted to the hospital and at another incident of 2011 of the death of a mother due to snake bite, where government refused to pay any compensation. They too noted positive encouragement from the family members in going out for this job.
Nima Nagakoti of Uttarakhand asserted that through sustained struggle they have managed to acquire separate room, furniture and drinking water for the ASHA workers in the hospital. However, they continue to suffer from lack of security and transport while carrying the pregnant mothers to the hospitals particularly at night time. She also shared how she asserted against the hardships created by her in-laws to continue with the profession.

Chaitali Sen