Resolution No. 1

Towards Trade Union Unity

The NTUI Founding Conference on March 5-6, 2006, “putting the agenda of merger from the inception itself” committed itself to seeking “expanding cooperative and federal relationships towards uniting the labour movement”. It accordingly resolved as a first step to initiate bilateral discussions and negotiations with all progressive national trade union centres with the objective of building a single trade union organization.

In accordance with the resolution, various discussions were held in the last year with the central leadership of the AITUC and the HMS. The response to these discussions was very positive from both organizations. It was decided at the federation level to institute an informal dispute resolution mechanism. It was also agreed that a common framework could be discussed for responding to issues affecting the trade union movement.

A specific agenda for trade union unity pursued in the last year was the industry federation. NTUI made significant progress with the AITUC for a federation of anganwadi workers’ unions, and initiated discussions for an engineering federation with the AITUC and a federation of garment and textile unions with the HMS.

At the local level joint actions were held at various instances with trade union affiliates of the AITUC, HMS and the CITU. These included a common trade union for contract electricity workers in Maharashtra; joint rallies at the General Strike and the Mayday programmes in Gujarat and Jaipur; and significant cooperation with the AITUC on various struggles of engineering and auto unions in Gurgaon. The joint actions helped in cementing real cooperation of grass root unions in the regions.

In the foregoing context, NTUI reaffirms its core principle of unity, and its belief in the aspiration of workers to unite in the face of the increasing onslaught of global capital. It resolves to continue efforts for broad alliance with left-democratic unions at the local level. It resolves to increase the ambit of cooperation with the AITUC and the HMS, with specific focus to:

  • Develop a consultative framework at the central leadership level to address inter-union issues; share viewpoints and discuss common strategies;
  • Stabilise a mechanism for joint statements and adopting a common response to trade union policy matters;
  • Move in the direction of common federations, starting with engineering, anganwadi workers, and textiles and garments sector;
  • Develop organizing initiatives against capital and build trade union solidarity in the regional context, with initial focus on the national capital region, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka.

Chennai, 30 July 2007

Resolution No. 1 was last edited by ntui, on Saturday, the 12 of December, 2009.