GUWAHATI, Sept 29 - Opposing the moves to privatise PSUs and codify the labour laws, trade unions here today called for a mass agitation to force the government to listen to the demands of the people.
At a convention held at Narengi, representatives from over twenty trade unions, representing various PSUs endorsed an eight-point charter of demands that they will submit to the government following a demonstration in the city on October 22.
AITUC working president and deputy general secretary of World Federation of Trade Unions, H Mahadevan, emphasised the need for mass agitation to make the government listen to the demands of the people.
He said the present government under the leadership of Narendra Modi is against the development of PSUs and wants these to be privatised. �The Prime Minister wants to codify the labour laws to support the capitalist individuals,� he said and urged the gathering to take active participation in mobilising the masses against the government�s anti-worker plans.
Reading out the declaration of the convention, AITUC state general secretary Ramen Das said the declaration is based on the current social, political and economic situation in India. The declaration stated that the present economic strength of the country is directly related to the PSUs which are the backbone of the Indian economy.
�These PSUs were set up on the demands of the people post-independence with the help of the socialist countries when the then government under Jawaharlal Nehru could not get any help from the capitalist countries. The very base of PSUs is socialism, which has the strength to thwart even the great recessions. The Centre�s plan to privatise many of these PSUs will be detrimental to the working class. The codification of 44 laws into four labour codes is even much more dangerous,� Das said.
The main demands of the convention are: revival of the paper mills of Nagaon and Cachar and payment of arrears to the workers, halting of privatisation of railways, BSNL, airports and other PSUs, withdrawal of compulsory retirement to one lakh fifty five thousand workers of railways under the fundamental rule imposed by the government, revival of PSUs, halting of privatisation and contractualisation of oil fields of ONGC and OIL, payment of Rs 351 as daily wages and 20 per cent bonus to tea garden workers, among others.
