CONGRATULATING the working class of the country for the magnificent and unprecedented countrywide joint general strike on September 2, 2015, the general council of CITU called upon it to further strengthen its unity and take the struggle to a higher level. It asserted that the growing discontent among the working class and the common people in general against the policies being pursued by the Modi led BJP government at the centre provided an opportunity for this. The general council of CITU warned the working class of the atrocious attempts by the communal forces led by the RSS and its outfits to disrupt the unity of the workers and weaken the struggle and exhorted it to thwart any such attempts and intensify united struggles. The general council called upon the working class and the people in general of the states of West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Assam and Puducherry, where elections to state assemblies are due in a few months, to defeat the parties which support the neo-liberal policies and ensure victory for the Left and democratic forces that stood for alternative policies. It reminded the people that it was only the Left parties that consistently supported the struggles of the working people against the neo-liberal policies. The general council directed its committees at all levels in these states to utilise the elections to take the message of the CITU to ‘link up workers’ issues with policies and policies with politics’ to ensure defeat of the parties that stand for anti-worker policies. The meeting of the CITU general council was held in Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand, from December 17- 20, 2015. 282 members and invitees from 21 states attended the general council meeting, which was presided over by AK Padmanabhan, president of CITU. The general council meeting started with the hoisting of the CITU flag by its president AK Padmanabhan. Sudhir Das, chairman of the reception committee and president of Jharkhand state committee of CITU welcomed the participants. Ranjana Nirula, treasurer of CITU, placed the condolence resolution. Delivering the presidential address, Padmanabhan extended greetings of CITU to the working class of the country as well as in different parts of the world for its continued resistance against the neo-liberal policies being pursued by their respective governments. He appreciated the solidarity extended by different sections of the toiling people to the all India general strike on September 2 and conveyed the gratitude of the CITU. He also congratulated the workers for their impressive participation in the demonstrations on July 30 at the call of CITU, to express solidarity with the peasants’ struggle against the Land Acquisition Ordinance and the agrarian crisis. He hoped that such solidarity and joint actions would continue on more issues and with more frequency in the future. Padmanabhan congratulated the people of Bihar for rejecting the BJP in the recent assembly elections. This, he said, was the continuation of the defeat of the BJP in the local body elections in Uttar Pradesh. He also congratulated the people of Kerala for defeating the corrupt Congress led UDF and electing LDF in the local body elections and the people of Tripura for ensuring thumping victory for Left Front in the recently held municipal elections. The vicious attacks on workers’ struggles in different states, particularly in West Bengal, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were strongly condemned by Padmanabhan, who said that the TMC government in West Bengal had exposed itself as the most undemocratic and oppressive government in the country. He congratulated the workers in these states, particularly in West Bengal for their militant resistance to these attacks. He also welcomed the formation of Bengal Platform of Mass Organisations comprising over hundred mass organisations in the state and the massive campaigns and struggles being conducted by it to safeguard the democratic and livelihood rights of the working people in the state. GROWING INEQUALITIES Padmanabhan pointed out that several reports on the outlook of global economy, including those of the IMF and ILO belie all hopes of its recovery from the global crisis that has been persisting since the last over seven years. The objective situation around the world has compelled not only the ILO but also institutions like the IMF and the World Bank to deliberate on growing inequalities. According to the Deputy Director General of ILO, ‘80 wealthiest people in the world altogether own $1.9 trillion, nearly the same amount shared by the 3.5 billion people, who occupy the bottom half of the world’s income scale. And the richest one percent of the population controls nearly half of the world’s total wealth, a share that is also increasing. In almost all countries, the mean wealth of the top decile of the population (ie, the wealthiest 10 percent) is more than ten times the median wealth; for the top one percent, it exceeds 100 times the median wealth in many countries; in the most unequal nations, it can approach 1000 times the median’. India was no exception to this trend. According to the ‘Credit Suisse’ report, ‘the richest Indians owned 53 percent of the country’s wealth, while the share of the top 10 percent was 76.3 percent. To put it differently, in a manner that conveys the political economy of this stunning statistic, 90 percent of India owns less than a quarter of the country’s wealth’. The same report states that in 2000, the share of the richest one percent in the national wealth was 36.8 percent and that of the top 10 percent was 65.9 percent. In such a situation, governments in almost all the capitalist countries are trying to impose more burdens on the workers. In France, crucial clauses of law including working hours, industrial wage settlements etc are being amended giving scope for local settlements between employers and unions. In the UK, the government has proposed a Trade Union Bill, which if adopted would curtail the right to strike, picket etc, seriously attacking the right to association and collective bargaining. In Greece, Syriza, which won the elections, is going ahead with the ‘austerity’ prescription on the pretext of safeguarding the ‘future’. These measures are being opposed by the trade unions as in UK, France, Greece, South Korea etc. In Portugal, a Left coalition has come to power with the agenda to address some immediate issues of workers like increase in wages, better access to health, education etc. The presidential address expressed concern at the growth of terrorist groups like the IS, Taliban etc, which is now generally attributed to the covert and overt operations of imperialist forces headed by the USA. Padmanabhan stressed that the present crisis must be looked at as a crisis of the capitalist system itself and the workers must be made conscious of this. The struggles of the workers on their immediate demands have to be linked with the ultimate objective of the CITU, of ending all exploitation. In this context, he emphasised the need to protect the unity of the working class by defeating the attempts of the communal forces to disrupt its unity. He concluded by calling upon the CITU to get ready to convert the coming year into a year of more systematised, organised, united and militant struggles against the offensive of the ruling classes and defeat them. Tapan Sen, general secretary, CITU, introduced the general secretary’s report. He said that the working class today was facing a challenging situation because of the attacks by the ruling classes on the life, livelihood and rights of the workers and common people. The country wide general strike on September 2 by the working class and the united campaigns and struggles by the peasants and agricultural workers in the recent period have been the biggest ever response of the working people to this challenge. But the Modi led BJP government at the centre was not paying any heed to the sufferings of the common people and to their demands. Despite the discontent and dissatisfaction of the people, which found strong expression in the September 2 general strike, it has not changed the direction of its anti-worker, anti-people policies. Instead, it appears to have become more desperate to bank upon its foreign patrons in pursuing its neo-liberal agenda, even at the cost of jeopardising national interests. It has announced its decision to liberalise FDI in 15 major sectors including defence, civil aviation, broadcasting, banking etc, on the eve of yet another foreign trip by the prime minister, evading even the formal approval of the cabinet. Despite all its manipulations of the GDP statistics, the government could not whitewash the grim decelerating picture of the economy. Around 19.8 percent of registered factories have reportedly closed down by the end of one year of Modi’s rule. The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) fell from 6.4 percent in September 2015 to 3.6 percent in October 2015 with the sharpest fall in manufacturing. Under these conditions, appeasing foreign capital cannot translate automatically into GDP growth because the purchasing power of people is declining leading to contraction of domestic demand. Unemployment has worsened not only due to decelerating growth rate but also due to increasing incidence of closures and shut downs. The general secretary’s report also noted the aggravation of agrarian crisis and unabated suicides of farmers. The number of workdays in agriculture has sharply declined as a result of which lakhs of agricultural workers are compelled to migrate to the cities and to non agricultural work. Tapan Sen strongly castigated the government for being totally insensitive to the plight of the common people. In fact, the government was acting like an enemy of the people hatching a nasty conspiracy to tear apart society to affect communal polarisation utilising the network of RSS and its frontal organisations. He asserted that this was an integral part of the Modi led BJP government’s comprehensive project of ‘Hindu Rashtra’ and making it subservient to the interests of the domestic and foreign corporates. Provocative statements were being issued, not just by some swamis and sadhvis but by prominent MPs, MLAs and ministers of BJP who have taken oath in the name of the Indian Constitution. Perpetrators of attacks on dalits also feel emboldened under the rule of BJP, which is a member of the Sangh Parivar, and an avowed admirer of Manusmriti. Intolerance is spreading. Those defending secular values and rationalist thinking are being murdered and threatened. All this is leading to a feeling of insecurity among the minorities and widening communal polarisation. ALARMING SITUATION Terming the present situation alarming, Tapan Sen said that this reflected the aggravating systemic crisis of capitalism which seeks to bring about severe distortions in the society. The BJP government at the centre was displaying slavish subservience to imperialist interests. It has reconciled to the position as a junior partner of imperialism, which is seeking to expand its hegemony in the Asia Pacific region. The joint military ‘Malabar Exercises’ of India, US and Japan signal the dangerous trend of India aligning with the US military strategy in Asia undermining our country’s strategic independence and autonomy. The general secretary’s report pointed out that people were getting disillusioned of Modi and BJP as was clear not only from the resounding defeat of the BJP in the Bihar assembly elections but also in the local body elections in Uttar Pradesh, including the village so grandiosely adopted by the prime minister, and its virtual rout in the panchayat elections in Gujarat though it retained its hold over majority of municipalities. On the other hand in Tripura, where the LDF was continuously in power since the last more than two decades, people have been reposing their faith in the Left by repeatedly voting in its favour in successive elections, the latest being the elections to the urban local bodies where the Left registered a sweeping victory in all the municipalities and Agartala corporation. In this situation, asserted Tapan Sen, it is only the working class that can and has to shoulder the responsibility of combating the onslaught of the exploitative system by strengthening class unity. The class character of the forces acting against people, attacking their livelihood on the one hand and disrupting their unity on the other, has to be exposed. He emphasised the need for the entire CITU to direct its activities in that direction. Recalling the response of the workers to the CITU call of observing a Day in solidarity with the issues of peasants on July 30 and the solidarity and support from the peasants and agricultural workers to the September 2 general strike, Tapan Sen said that CITU has to take initiative to further strengthen the bonds between the workers and peasants through joint actions on common issues. He proposed observance of an all India day in commemoration of the first countrywide joint general strike by the trade union movement on January 19, 1982 when the demands of remunerative prices for the peasantry and a comprehensive law for agricultural workers were raised by the working class. 49 general council members participated in the discussion on the general secretary’s report and endorsed its formulations and strengthened it with their concrete experiences at the grass root level. The general council discussed the ‘Unemployment Employment Issue’ in a special session on the basis of a paper introduced by Swadesh Dev Roye, national secretary, CITU. The paper noted that unemployment, inherent in the capitalist system, has been aggravating since the advent of neo-liberal policies and has further worsened since the global crisis. This was a global phenomenon with India being no exception. Youth comprised a large section of the unemployed. The increasing number of closures and retrenchments was adding to the number of unemployed. Besides, because of the widespread poverty and lack of social security, the poor in India cannot afford to remain unemployed as a result of which they were compelled to take up jobs with pathetic wages. He cited the example of the workers employed in various schemes of the government of India who were not even recognised as ‘workers’. The paper emphasised that the working class needed to address the issues of the unemployed as well. 28 delegates participated in the discussion on the ‘Unemployment Employment Situation’. The basic formulation was strengthened through concrete examples of how capitalists were utilising various means to bring down employment, increase productivity and exploitation to increase their profits. Several suggestions were given to strengthen the paper. FUTURE TASKS The general council unanimously adopted the general secretary’s report and the future tasks that included pursuing initiative for joint trade union activities along with widening independent campaigns to reach the unreached. It called upon all the state committees to observe January 19, 2016 as an all India Day in solidarity with peasants and agricultural workers, to effectively implement the all India protest day on February 5, 2016 as per the call of the joint trade union movement, to organise a national workshop of CITU leadership on violence and sexual harassment against women soon after the ensuing elections to the state assemblies, observe all India demands’ day of scheme workers on April 10, 2016, etc. The general council also reiterated the decisions to strengthen the organisation and activise the primary unit level committees to effectively implement the tasks ahead. On December 20, 2015, PT Rajan, member of general council from Kerala who was attending the meeting, died suddenly in a hospital where he was admitted the previous day. Rajan was secretary of Kozhikode district committee of CITU and general secretary of the state artisans’ union, one of the largest unions in the state. The general council paid respectful homage to the departed comrade. In his concluding speech, Padmanabhan thanked the Jharkhand state committee for the excellent arrangements made for the smooth conduct of the general council. He exhorted all general council members to ensure that the tasks are effectively implemented and a strong movement to reverse the neo-liberal policies of the BJP led government is developed by involving all sections of toiling people. The general council paid rich tributes to BT Ranadive, founder president of CITU and an illustrious leader of the trade union and democratic movement of the country, on his 111th birth anniversary on December 19,2015.