THE Industrial Relations Code, 2019 has been introduced in Lok Sabha in the ongoing session. It seeks to replace three important labour laws – the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947; the Trade Unions Act, 1926; and the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946. The BJP government, in its first tenure itself, mooted this bill, and uploaded it on the labour ministry’s website, in April 2015. The draft was then circulated among the central trade unions in October. Bipartite and tripartite discussions were held on this draft.

THIRTY thousand anganwadi workers from all over Karnataka, gathered at Tumkur on December 10 for a padayatra to Bangalore. They were prevented by hundreds of policemen deployed. But anganwadi workers refused to budge and stayed at the Glass House Maidan and other maidans of Tumkur where they had gathered.  They stayed over the night on December 10th in the maidans against the police demand to disperse, and cooked for dinner.

WORKERS of public sector oil and petroleum companies, BPCL, HPCL and ONGC (MRPL) observed a nationwide strike on November 28, opposing Modi government’s suicidal move to completely sell out BPCL to private companies. The united strike was led successfully by the leadership of all the three national federations of oil and petroleum sector workers. Around 30,000 regular and contract workers led by around 25 grassroots level unions affiliated with these federations, took part in the strike. 

THE third version of the Code on Social Security 2019, which will subsume eight laws related to social security of both organised as well as unorganised workers, has been circulated for stakeholders’ consultations on September 17. The CITU has raised serious objection to this codification exercise being undertaken on pretext of “universalizing” social security benefit as it unleashes a frontal attack on all social security schemes meant for workers.

A NATIONAL Convention of Oil & Petroleum workers organised by the trade unions of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Oil India Limited (OIL), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) was held in Mumbai on October 26. Around 350 union workers from these oil public sector undertakings (PSUs), from all over the country, participated in the convention and resolved to protest against the move to privatise oil PSUs in the country. They called for an all India strike on November 28.