The Hindu : National : "Workers' rights subverted"

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 02, 2004

National

National

"Workers' rights subverted"

By Our Staff Correspondent

Children and activists of the Indian Federation of Trade Unions at a May Day rally in New Delhi on Saturday. - Photo: Shanker Chakravarty

NEW DELHI, MAY 1. The International Labour Day remained a low key affair across the country today with rallies virtually being converted into election meetings. The scene was particularly subdued in the Capital as almost all senior leaders of trade unions and Left parties were away for campaigning.

Elsewhere in the country, hoisting of flags, cycle runs and rallies marked the day that is observed every year on May 1 as a mark of respect to the labourers who were killed in firing in Chicago in 1886 while demanding workers rights.

Making use of the opportunity to woo voters, leaders of the Left parties — many of whom are also associated with the labour movement — urged the working class to remove the present Government at the Centre in the ongoing elections as it was "selling the wealth of the country" through disinvestment and changing the labour laws to suit capitalists and foreign multinational companies.

While there was a mention of the need to safeguard the interests of the working class, the voice of the labour organisations was virtually drowned in the din of electioneering.

However, Labour Day was observed with enthusiasm in Left-dominated States such as Kerala and West Bengal. Industrial towns in Maharashtra saw an impressive consolidation of labour force on the day. Addressing a rally, the senior Congress leader, Vilasrao Deshmukh, asked the working populace to fight unitedly against the "anti-worker'' policy of the Centre whose leaders were "selling the country's wealth by way of disinvestment.''

Three DMK nominees for Lok Sabha seats in Chennai — T. R. Baalu, C. Kuppuswamy and Dayanidhi Maran — also addressed May Day rallies in their constituencies.

In Delhi, a rally was taken out from Azad Park to Ramlila Maidan, under the banner of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), which was addressed by the Delhi unit leaders of various trade unions. In a joint statement issued on the occasion, the trade unions said the National Democratic Alliance Government had resorted to "anti-worker'' policies under American influence, as a result of which farmers, labourers and the salaried class had to bear economic hardship. Farmers committing suicides, increasing unemployment and fundamentalism were a result of the anti-people economic policies of the Government, the statement said, adding that the ongoing elections were an opportunity to remove the Government that had harmed the working class in the past five years.

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