THE meeting of the secretariat of the CITU held on March 23-24, 2015 at New Delhi, unanimously adopted a resolution calling upon the working people to prepare for countrywide united strike to decisively resist the brazenly anti-people and anti-national onslaught of the corporate-servile BJP led government on the national economy, the natural resources and life and livelihood of the common people, much to the detriment of national interests.

The secretariat noted that the BJP regime is a regime of all round attack on the labour rights of the workers and land-rights of the farmers; attack on wages and livelihood of the working people who create wealth for the nation and also attack on remunerative prices for the farmers who produce food for the people; attack on social security rights in the form of doing away with the employees provident fund scheme and diverting a part of the fund for speculation in share market, doing away with the ESI through converting the same into a insurance scheme under the IRDA; drastic cut on social sector expenditure and allocation on welfare schemes like the ICDS, mid-day-meal, NRHM, MNREGA with the motive to finally do away with such pro-people schemes and programmes altogether. The union budget (2015-16) of this BJP government has laid bare the most cruel onslaught on the common people, both in cities and villages, in industries, services and agriculture under deceptive sound-bites on development, investment and employment generation which would never materialise, and will only aggravate the loot on the people and the country’s resources and exchequers by the corporate and big-business lobby, both domestic and foreign. The noise being made by the government on increasing the devolution of funds from the divisible pool to 42 per cent, to the state governments is nothing but a hoax, since, along with transferring funds to states, even bigger burden on account of many centrally funded schemes has also been shifted onto them, making practically no difference, rather deteriorating the situation. It is a novel way of engineering fraud on the people and the states. 

Simultaneously with budget, the governement of the day has launched a plunderous attack on the natural resources and national assets of the country. Ordinances have been promulgated for denationalisation of coal-mining sector, deregulation of the other mineral resources through auction route, totally unconcerned and unmindful of the livelihood and rights of the local and tribal population, forest dwellers and labour-rights of the miners, and privatisation and deregulation of the insurance sector, and also the changing Land Acquisition Act to grab land from farmers without consent in favour of corporate and big business lobby.  Onslaught of privatisation and disinvestment of public sector units, vital infrastructure and public utility services is going on in full swing; major ports of the country are being corporatised to pave way for their privatisation.

Simultaneously, an aggressive exercise has been going on to completely alter the existing labour laws like Factories Act, Industrial Disputes Act, Contract Labour (Regulation & Abolition) Act, all wages related legislations etc, in favour of the employers with the ultimate aim of pushing the overwhelming majority of the country’s workforce out of protection and purview of all labour laws and completely dismantling the entire labour-law-enforcement machinery. Never before, the working people of the country, who create GDP for the nations, generate resources for the national exchequer and also produce profit for the employers are faced with such heinous, atrocious all round attacks on their rights, lives and livelihood. 

Along with such overhauling exercise on labour laws in favour of their masters in the capitalist lobby, the governements of the day, both at the centre and the states, have been directly patronising the ongoing attacks on the workers in various workplaces through mass scale contractorisation, non-payment of statutory minimum wages and social security benefits, lock-outs, closures, retrenchment and atrocities in various other forms, none of which can stand the test of law. When the government has been shouting at the top of their voice about its promises on employment generations, workers in numerous establishments including MNCs, IT sector mostly in the age-group of 25 to 40 years have been losing jobs in several thousands as being witnessed in Nokia, Foxconn, TCS, I-gate etc. The real employment scenario in the country is that, more people are losing jobs than new opportunities created, regular workers are replaced by casual and temporary workers with working conditions of that of virtual slavery. Should a civilised society put up with such an all-round degeneration in the quality of life being perpetrated by the corporate servile BJP-regime?   

Along with such atrocious onslaught on the national economy, natural resources, national assets and on the life and livelihood of the common people, workers, peasants and agricultural workers, the Modi regime with its parallel network of RSS bandwagons has been spitting venom on the unity and tranquillity of the society through its communal and divisive machinations through its “ghar vapsi” and other programmes  in order to divide people and divert the attention from its anti-people designs of “pay-back” or “dhan-vapsi” to their corporate donors cum masters. This is nothing but a heinous conspiracy  to  sustain its policy of loot and plunder on the national economy and the people without any hurdles.

Such grave anti-people and anti-national design of loot and plunder on the nation and imposing slavery on the people must be resolutely resisted  by the united working class movement to save the workers, save the people and save the country. Already joint actions including strikes have taken place in various sectors like coal, banks, insurance etc. Joint struggles including strikes have been planned in many other sectors including road transport, construction, BSNL and postal-services in the coming months. The CITU extends total support to all these struggles. The Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions has already demonstrated their united opposition through observance of a protest day on December 5, 2014 and mass countrywide satyagraha and court arrest on February 26, 2015.

The CITU secretariat noted that given the aggressiveness of the all-round atrocious attack on the working people and the national economy, the aggressive auctioneering mode in respect of vital national assets, infrastructure, PSUs and public utility services like electricity etc, the present level of protest programmes by the Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions and federations must be heightened to a struggle of determined resistance by the working class and the toiling people from all sectors. Countrywide militant strike action is the urgent need of the hour which will unleash similar resistance action in every sector of the economy, both in cities and villages, factories and farms, services and sites throughout the country. The designs of auctioning cum mortgaging the country’s economy and imposing slavery on the people cannot be allowed to pass.

The CITU secretariat unanimously resolves to work in that direction and calls upon the working class in general and its affiliated and associated unions and federations in particular to overcome all vacillations and unleash intensified campaign-cum-agitation to reach widest sections of the toiling population, to prepare the working people for a militant countrywide strike action at the earliest against the anti-worker, anti-people policy regime and for a sustained resistance struggle at every front in order to save the country and save the people.