K Hemalata
THE working class of the country is all set to go on a massive countrywide general strike on July 9, 2025. Standing shoulder to shoulder with the working class will be the peasantry – both peasants and agricultural workers, who will be flooding the streets across the country in solidarity with the workers. The Left Parties have jointly extended their support to the general strike and called upon their members and supporters to ensure that the general strike is a resounding success.
Thus, the general strike on July 9 is certainly going to be the largest ever general strike the country has witnessed till today with unprecedented participation of all the producing sections of the society.
The call for the strike was given by the joint platform of trade unions, comprising ten central trade unions and almost all the independent all India sectoral federations/ associations, against the decision of the Modi government to implement the Labour Codes. The Samyukta Kisan Morcha that spearheaded the historic farmers’ movement that forced the Modi led government to repeal the hated farm laws, extended full support to the general strike.
Though the main demand on which the general strike is being organised is scrapping of the Labour Codes, the joint trade union platform has also reiterated the other demands it has been raising since the last several years. These include not only the demands of the working class, but also of all sections of the toiling people including MSP, effective implementation and expansion of MGNREGA to urban areas, employment, curtailing of price rise, halt to privatisation and handing over of our country’s wealth and natural resources to the big private corporates, domestic and foreign.
The people of our country, particularly all sections of the toiling masses, are facing a very serious and challenging situation today. There are huge attacks on their livelihoods and living and working conditions. Real wages for the overwhelming majority of the workers are on the decline. Working conditions are worsening. The profit hungry corporates are demanding 70 hours’ and 90 hours’ work in a week. Permanent employment is fast becoming a thing of the past. Whatever employment is generated is mostly precarious and non-permanent. The future of our youth hangs in uncertainty. To ensure unbridled exploitation and unhampered loot of the country’s wealth – its public sector, natural resources including land, mines, forests, water bodies etc., the big corporates want the working class to be chained and its voice suppressed. They want union free workplaces and voiceless people.
The Modi led NDA government at the centre is shamelessly obeying the commands of their bosses, their donors and benefactors – the big corporate houses. Enacting the Labour Codes, three of them without any discussion in Parliament, was a display of its obedience to its masters. These are intended to deprive the working class of its united strength, the strength of its organisation – the unions, and disarm it by snatching away their hard won right to collective action, their right to strike.
The so called ‘labour reforms’, an integral part of the neoliberal policies, was the priority of the Modi led BJP government soon after it came to power for the second time in 2019. Though it could enact the Labour Codes in 2019-20, it could not notify them for implementation till now, nearly five years after they were passed in Parliament because of the strong resistance from the working class. Implementing the Labour Codes has become the priority of the Modi led regime after it came to power for the third time, though with reduced numbers. Continuing to face opposition from the working class, the Modi government is desperately resorting to several nefarious measures to push its neoliberal agenda and also to get the provisions of the Labour Codes implemented
Public assets like our highways, railway stations and other railway properties, electricity transmission, telecommunication networks, ports, etc., built with people’s money are being handed over through the National Monetisation Pipeline to the private corporates for minting money. The Modi government is facilitating plunder of the public exchequer, hard earned money that common people paid in taxes, through its various schemes like Production Linked Incentives, Capex Incentives, and Employment Linked Incentives etc. These are being promoted in the name of employment generation to delude the youth. In reality, they only promote fragile and precarious jobs and subsidise the employers, both domestic and foreign. While expenditure on health, education and other welfare benefits for the poor and MGNREGA etc., is being curtailed, lakhs of crores of rupees of people’s money is being diverted to benefit the big corporates.
Besides, during the recent period, the Modi government has decriminalised hundreds of offences of corporates under various legislations as per the provisions of the Jan Vishwas Act. The provision for imprisonment for violating these laws has been withdrawn; punishment is confined to paying some fine only. This is nothing but a green signal to violate laws, including labour laws, with impunity. At the same time, collective actions by workers to assert their rights are being criminalised to such an extent that even lodging a collective complaint by the workers and their unions is sought to be interpreted as ‘organised crime’ under section 111 of BNS leading to police action including non bailable imprisonment. Even before the Labour Codes are implemented, routine trade union activities like gate meetings, departmental meetings, distribution of leaflets, submitting memoranda etc., particularly in government establishments are being prohibited. These are nothing but measures to create an atmosphere of fear among the workers.
It is not only the workers that are sought to be suppressed. All sections of people who raise their voice against the policies of the government, including intellectuals, journalists are being harassed and jailed. The country has witnessed how the farmers who fought against the three farm laws were maligned, harassed and attacked. UAPA, PMLA, BNS along with many administrative and executive measures are being used by the ruling dispensation that is displaying neofascist characters.
This situation stems from the deepening systemic crisis of capitalism. The ruling classes in the capitalist countries across the world including in our country are responding to the crisis by increasing their attacks on the hard won rights of the working class and the toiling people including their basic democratic and constitutional rights. Although the Modi government has not notified the Labour Codes for implementation till now, it is pressurising the state governments to notify them. Most of the state governments, including those led by BJP, Congress, and other regional parties like DMK, AAP, TDP etc who subscribe to neoliberalism are amending existing labour laws. Most of the state governments have amended the labour laws to allow night shift work for women, fixed term employment and have increased the threshold level of workers for applicability of labour laws like Factories Act, Contract Labour Act and ID Act, giving a free hand for the employers to ‘hire and fire’. It is only the LDF government in Kerala that has refused to make any anti-worker amendment to the labour laws.
In addition, the RSS and its outfits are helping the ruling classes with their divisive Hindutva agenda. They seek to divert the attention of the working class and the people from their burning issues and the neoliberal capitalism which is the root cause of the onslaught on their living and working conditions. They have been resorting to rabid communal propaganda, disrupt unity and weaken struggles against the neoliberal attacks.
It is in this background that the joint platform of trade unions gave the call for countrywide general strike. The general strike, which was initially planned to be held on May 20, 2025, had to be rescheduled to be held on July 9 in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on tourists in Pahalgam and the later escalation of conflicts between India and Pakistan.
The trade union movement has conducted 22 countrywide general strikes since the official advent of neoliberal policies in our country. However, this general strike on July 9, 2025 cannot be seen as one of the series of strikes. It is related to the protection of the basic rights of the workers – of their right to organisation and collective action – and to the existence of trade unions, the organisational expression of the unity and struggle of the working class. It marks the beginning of a higher phase of intensified struggles of defiance and resistance to stall the neoliberal attacks. The campaign for the strike and the general strike has aimed to strengthen the unity of the toiling people, and the unity of the workers and peasants at the grassroots level. It marks the beginning of the working class struggles for an alternative to the failed neoliberal regime and for pro-worker, pro-people policy regime.
Factory Gate Meeting in Ghaziabad Mobilises Workers for July 9 General Strike
At a factory gate meeting organised by the CPI(M) Ghaziabad district committee in the lead-up to the July 9 nationwide general strike, M A Baby, CPI(M) General Secretary, warned that the implementation of the four labour codes would push workers into servitude. He said that under Modi’s regime, even the basic right to an 8-hour workday – won through historic struggles like that of the Chicago martyrs – was under threat. He also remembered the martyrdom of Comrades Safdar Hashmi and Ram Bahadur for the working class cause.
Hundreds of workers from factories around Site 4, Ghaziabad, participated in the meeting. CPI(M) Polit Bureau member R Arun Kumar called on the working class to hit the streets, and assured Party’s support to them in their fight against the anti-worker policies. He criticised Prime Minister Modi for glorifying capitalists while ignoring the role of workers in wealth creation, adding that the upcoming strike would be a wake-up call. CPI(M) Delhi state secretary Anurag Saxena also addressed the gathering. The meeting was chaired by Brijesh Kumar Singh. The district leadership of various mass organisations was also present.
