The Hindu : Workers take up the cudgels for Gujarat victims

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 02, 2002

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National

Workers take up the cudgels for Gujarat victims

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI MAY 1. The May Day celebrations in the country today had an additional dimension apart from the usual criticism of "anti-labour" policies and practices of governments, what was in focus was the unabating communal carnage in Gujarat. The workers wanted the dismissal of the Narendra Modi Government for its "partisan role and failure to control the situation in Gujarat". The trade unions also called upon workers to observe May 15 as "National Protest Day'' against the "genocide in Gujarat''.

Customary rallies, marches and meetings marking the May Day saw workers in a sombre mood as they voiced their concern against the Gujarat violence. A group of workers demonstrated their anger against the Gujarat Government by burning the effigies of the Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, and the Union Home Minister, L. K. Advani, in Delhi. They also took pledges to fight the "anti-people and anti-labour policies of the Government."

Protesting the Centre's "anti-labour'' policies , the Uttatriya Railway Mazdoor Union threatened to go on a mass leave if the Government failed to meet their demands, including exclusion of the employees' privilege travel passes from the purview of income-tax.

While observing a day-long fast to mark May Day, the activists also submitted a memorandum to the Railways Minister, Nitish Kumar, giving a month's notice for the proposed mass leave agitation. They also protested against the ban on recruitment including on compassionate grounds, privatisation and curtailment in the rate of interests on the provident fund. The sponsoring committee of the central trade unions-- AITUC, CITU, HMS,AICCTU, UTUC, TUCC and the National Federations of the trade unions in industries, financial sectors and the Associations of the Central and State Government-- held a special meeting to mark the day. While deciding to observe "National Protest Day'' against the Gujarat carnage, it called upon the working class and the people to organise protest demonstration rallies and all other forms of effective locations in different part of the country. Earlier it condemned the communal carnage in Gujarat and asked for dismissal of Narendra Modi.

The meeting presided over by Gurdas Das Gupta, general secretary of AITUC, also congratulated the workers for making a grand success of the biggest industrial action in the country-wide strike on April 16 to protest against IMF, the World Bank and the WTO dictated "disastrous anti-national and anti-people'' policies pursued by the BJP led NDA Government. It again decried these policies and warned the Government against their harmful fall out for the country.

Extending full support to the decision of the trade unions in the coal mines to go for a weak-long strike all over the country in the first week of August, the committee appealed to all the workers to express solidarity with the coal workers.

The Government will examine the recommendations of the Second National Labour Commission and ensure that it is implemented soon. The report is expected shortly, the Labour Minister, Sharad Yadav, said in his May Day greetings.

Mr. Yadav said that workers contributed significantly to the development and prosperity of the nation and sought cooperation of the trade unions in nation-building in an era of economic reforms. The Commission had been set up to evolve an umbrella legislation for workers in the unorganised sector and suggest rationalisation of laws relating to workers in the organised sector.

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