General Strike 14 December 2006
Build Resistance
Join the Nation wide General Strike
14 December 2006
As the offensive of capital grows against working people, we come together to build and strengthen resistance. The Sponsoring Committee of Trade Unions, Industrial federations and Independent unions have joined forces to call for a general strike action on 14 December 2006. This is to resist the neo-liberal policies of the UPA government and the sustained attack on democratic rights of all workers, in India and abroad. The General Strike of 14 December 2006 reflects the shared position of all progressive trade union organisations, across the country, in the struggle against capitalist globalisation and is yet another landmark of working class unity.
NTUI endorses the 25 July 2006 strike 16-point charter agreed upon at the National Convention of Workers and demands more specifically:
- The basic right of every worker to an 8-hour work-day: Today, in India, the 8-hour working day norm, along with other forms of regulation of work, is applicable to only around one in every twenty workers, working in the organised sector. The organised sector is also under tremendous attack. The 8-hour work-day defines the limits of decent working standards and should form the measure of the work required to be done by any worker in any sector or industry. The violation of the 8-hour day norm is a violation of a century old and internationally accepted measure of decent working conditions.
- A need based Minimum Wage for all workers in urban and rural sectors: Going by parameters laid out by the 15th Indian Labour Conference, the Need Based Minimum Wage for an urban worker in the country should be around Rs.6000 per month (Rs.200 per day) and around Rs.4000 – 5000 per month (Rs.150 per day) for semi-urban and rural workers. The statutory minimum wage is far below this and that too is a distant dream for most workers. Hence working well beyond the 8-hours is the only mean of survival for an average Indian worker in the urban and rural areas. This amounts to neither free nor fair employment conditions and is tantamount to forced labour.
- Equal wage for equal work in an industry: The Contract Labour Act was founded on the premise of progressive realisation of the universality of equality through abolition of contract employment. Today, most contract workers are constrained under conditions of forced labour and job insecurity to work far beyond the 8-hour day at wages less than the statutory Minimum Wage. In industries employing both tenured and contract workers for the same work, the contract workers are paid about a third or even a fourth the wage of the tenured workers. This is violation to cardinal rights of citizens provided for in this country’s constitution.
- Universal Social Security: Today, with the retreat of the Government from all welfare measures – free and equitable health care, education, housing for all, public distribution of essential provisions – and the rampant privatisation of all public services, the burden of caring for the family has increased for the working people. The demand for a social security provision that covers the needs of all workers and their families is therefore central to meet a basic standard of living.
- Democracy at Workplace: All relations of power between labour and capital should be mediated on democratic principles. The foundations of democracy can only be secured and sustained when such democratic relations is institutionalised in every workplace and workers have rights, access and capacity to build unions and democratise the industrial relationships.
We call upon all sections of the working class to rise to the occasion to build resistance based on solidarity and strength to ensure the success of the working class.