CITU plans protests against Govt. policies

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, DEC. 31. Mr. E. Balanandan and Mr. M. K. Pandhe have been re-elected as president and general secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions on the concluding day of its tenth conference here today.

In the 35-member secretariat, downsized from 37, six leaders have been relieved from their positions on various grounds, while four new faces have been inducted. The new members are Messrs S. Veeraiah, M. A. Gafoor, P. K. Gurudusan and S. K. Bakshi. Mr. Bakshi has been named CITU president of Jharkhand.

The five-day conference relieved Messrs Nanduri Prasada Rao, Parsa Satyanarayana, both from Andhra Pradesh, A. Ghosh Dastidar from Assam, and Shanti Ghatak, West Bengal Labour Minister, on health grounds, Prabhakar Sanskari because of his preoccupation with political work and B V. Cherian who has returned to Kerala. All the remaining 31 members, who include vice-presidents and secretaries besides the Treasurer, Mr. Ranjit Basu, have been re- elected. Addressing a press conference, Mr. W. R. Varadarajan, one of the secretaries, said the conference chalked out three major action programmes, besides deciding to extend support to the five-day strike by the Federation of Medical Representatives of India from January 8 demanding a ban on the sale of spurious drugs and blackmarketing of drugs.

It called on the working class to observe a nation-wide protest day on January 24 against the increase in prices of all essential commodities, growing attacks on workers and repression of their struggles, drastic changes in labour legislation, job reduction in the Government and all sectors of industries and industrial sickness. This programme will be taken up by the CITU independently.

The conference resolved to organise solidarity actions from February 5 to 7 in support of the peasants and agricultural workers throughout the country, particularly in rural areas. The CITU workers would picket the Central and State Government offices on February 7. The CITU also decided to take the initiative in organising a national convention in consultation with other constituents of the Sponsoring Committee of Trade Unions to intensify the struggle against the ``reckless pursuit of the disastrous policies of economic liberalisation by the NDA Government.'' All trade unions, except the INTUC and the BMS, are members of the Sponsoring Committee.

The conference set various tasks to overcome the organisational weaknesses and called upon the leaders to increase the membership from 32 to 40 lakhs. Mr. Varadarajan said the delegates discussed the CITU self-critical report of which main feature was the implementation of the Bhubaneswar Declaration in 1993 which dealt with the weaknesses and suggested various measures.

The meet approved of the general secretary's report after a debate, in which 41 delegates participated. Reports of the seven commissions on different subjects were also discussed before they were adopted as policy papers.

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