THE Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has won a massive support of workers of the 'Navratna' company Neyveli Lignite Corporation Ltd, in the elections for recognition of unions. The elections were held on June 17. The results were announced at the night on the same day. There are 13 unions in the NLC. Among them six unions, CITU, ATP, LPF, PTS, BMS and AITUC contested in this secret ballot voting. As the permanent employees of NLC are only eligible to vote, 11,109 were the voters. Among them 10,680 votes were polled. CITU defeated the existing recognised unions LPF and ATP and came first with 4,828 votes. The next one is LPF. It got 2,426. ATP polled with 2,035; PTS 1,291; BMS 87 and AITUC secured a least of 12 votes. According to the rules of the NLC, recognised union or unions that can participate in any negotiations with the administration should be elected by the workers every four years. And also, the union which has support of 51 percent of polled votes can get the status of recognised union. It may be recalled that till 2008, the Labour Progressive Front (LPF), had remained as the single largest union. However, the central trade unions contested the ‘monopoly’ of the LPF in the Madras High Court which subsequently directed the NLC management to conduct secret ballot and declare the trade union that gets 51 percent of votes as a recognised union. However in these polls, CITU secured 45.2 percent votes. So, applying with rules, the second union also gets a chance to participate in negotiations. For the next four years, CITU and LPF will be the recognised unions of NLC. The results of the union elections in this great public sector corporation is considered as significant one because the workers rejected the unions of AIADMK and DMK (ATP and LPF) just one month after the same parties had managed to elect and rule the corridors of the power in Tamil Nadu assembly. Simply, it reflects the reality and the conscience of the working class. In this election, CITU got the support of LLF, MLF, HMS, DMTU, TTUC, INTUC and TVS. State general secretary of CITU G Sugumaran, NLC CITU union leaders Velmurugan, Jeyaraman, Thiru Arasu, CITU Cuddalore district secretary P Karuppiahan, CPI(M) district secretary T Arumugam thanked the supportive unions and its workers. Earlier in the NLC elections in 2008, PTS of Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) won and in 2012 it lost to ATP and LPF. This time, the workers rejected all the three unions because of their anti workers stand in so many struggles and also in negotiations. With this attitude and nature of the above said unions, for the past eight years, the workers of NLC faced many odds including vindictive actions of the administration. In this background, the AIADMK, DMK and PMK tried to woo the workers in these elections. Particularly the AIADMK and DMK poured money to purchase votes of the workers. Five ministers of Jayalalithaa government spent days and nights at Neyveli town to 'woo' the workers with money and get the votes. Prior to the elections, five ministers, O Panneerselvam, Edappadi K Palanisamy, S P Velumani, P Thangamani and M C Sampath took part in a meeting of the Anna Workers and Staff Union (ATP), held at Neyveli . In that meeting, state secretary of the Anna Thozhir Sanga Peravai (ATP) R Chinnasamy told “the CPI(M) does not have adequate representation in the parliament, whereas AIADMK has 50 MPs. Hence they could not raise their voice for the NLC workers in parliament, but the AIADMK could strongly speak for the workers and with this strength of MPs, our leader Jayalalithaa could press the central government to protect the NLC workers’ rights”. But the working class of the NLC outrightly rejected the money power and honey like words of the leaders of the AIADMK. They identified and recognised that CITU is the real fighting force for them. G Ramakrishnan, CPI(M) state secretary and A Soundararajan, CITU state president congratulated the workers of the NLC. CITU state committee also thanked the workers and vowed to fight and take forward the banner of unity of the working class.