Founding Address by NTUI President Y. V. Chavan
Comrades, delegates and friends,
I am deeply gratified to make the founding address of the New Trade Union Initiative.
Unity and independence
The founding of the NTUI is undoubtedly a historic occasion. It is for the first time in the trade union history of this country that a trade union has been built from below. The NTUI is being founded by primary unions from every corner of the country and a diverse range of employment. Equally important is the fact that the declared objective of this Initiative is not to create a new rival trade union centre but bring together hitherto unaffiliated union. This Initiative opens the debate towards unifying all trade unions in the country in the hope that we will come together under one united national trade union centre based on working class unity and politics free from domination by any single political party. It is only if we create a single locus of working class unity can we resist and respond to the increasing offensive of domestic as well as global capital against labour and labour rights.
The emergence of unaffiliated trade unions is the result of multiplicity of central organisations along party political lines resulting in splits and divisions in the working class. Workers in their need to preserve their grass roots unity demanded the separation of trade unions from party politics. This demand has even found its periodic assertion among the affiliated unions. In the unaffiliated unions we find besides unity, a higher density of union membership, more enthusiastic participation of workers in union work, and greater democracy. I am sure you will agree with me when I say that in the course of struggle we have learnt the art of maintaining unity and working unitedly, taking in our stride differences of opinion.
But since the beginning of the present phase of imperialist globalisation the situation has radically changed. It is no longer possible for individual unions to carry on their struggles in isolation. Workers must now pose their demands at an industry or sectoral level. It is at this level that the battle will have to be waged for governmental policies and their implementation. In this new struggle the scattered unaffiliated unions felt utterly powerless. Coming together in class solidarity across the country is an acutely felt need. Every one of us, activists of unaffiliated unions, has come to realize that there is an acute need for a single national trade union centre. Therefore we have taken on ourselves the responsibility and the task of launching the new initiative and have gathered here in this Founding Convention.
I have been associated with trade union movement for 65 years. I was baptised in the TU movement when one lakh Bombay textile mill workers struck for 40 days in 1940 for the demand for sliding Dearness Allowance to compensate rising prices of essential articles during the war. DA, which was a new concept then, has now become universal in the organised sector. History bears testimony to the fact that workers and trade unions in India have, since the beginning of the 20th century, struggled for reforms in their work places and have always striven to improve their living conditions. 65 years ago India was under British rule. Whether under British rule or after 1947 when India became independent, workers and trade unions have contributed immensely in all struggles against imperialist rule and domination. We have a proud heritage of participation in the freedom struggle and rich working class traditions.
In the initial years after independence in 1947, trade unions because of their contribution to the national struggle, acquired legitimacy to speak for the toiling millions. There was only one trade union centre until 1946 – AITUC, the All India Trade Union Congress. The founding session of AITUC was presided over by the great freedom fighter Lala Lajpat Rai and activists of various political hues. Social workers also freely and unitedly participated in the proceedings. The first major politically motivated breach was made on the eve of independence under the leadership of Vallabhbhai Patel by founding the INTUC based on class collaboration as opposed to class struggle. This was the beginning of the process of disunity in the trade union movement.
Trade unions became platforms of political parties and lost their character as workers’ own organisations. They came to be ridiculed as party shops. Slowly and steadily a plethora of trade union centres started appearing on the horizon. Splits in political parties and formation of groups with different political orientations found trade union wings of such parties and groups emerging as if it was a necessary natural consequence. In addition, several unions mushroomed in different industrial centres led by individuals with or without apparent political patronage. Over a period of time owing to several factors the nobleness attached to the movement received a set back. Division and rivalry among unions weakened the movement. Today, even the relevance of trade unions is being questioned. Taking advantage of the division among trade unions, the employers and governments started ignoring the genuine issues of the toiling millions. Trade unions no longer get any space in the formulation of labour policies. The creators of wealth have lost out in the bargain.
Never before have the trade unions faced the ignominy they are facing at the moment, in the present era of imperialist globalisastion. This is the background which lends urgency, importance and significance to the ideas of independence of trade union organisations from the influence of employers, the government and political parties; and their unity on class basis. Independence and unity constitute the fundamental inspirations of NTUI.
Impact of globalisation
All this has happened while the labour productivity is on the rise and business is flourishing with higher profits. Under the ugly onslaught of globalisation, owners of capital, instead of lessening the burden of workers, expanded working hours and intensified workload. Traditional industries like textile and jute faced the brutal offensive of capital that ultimately led to millions of workers losing their jobs. Production is being shifted to the unorganised sector, to semi-urban and rural areas where workers are without any labour rights.
Workers in India like workers elsewhere in the world are faced with complex problems especially during the last decade and half. It is during this period that the offensive against labour manifested its global nature. The collapse of the Berlin wall in 1990 opened up new vistas and opportunities for the industrialized west European countries and the USA to invest in any part of the world. This advantage provided them with the tool to further tighten their grip on the economies of poor countries the world over, and strangulate labour in their countries as well as in other countries. Shifting of production and services to any part of the world where labour is cheap became possible because of technological development, which in turn posed serious threat to the bargaining power of trade unions and workers, not only in poor countries but also in the most advanced economies. The dismemberment of the Soviet Union opened the doors for the process of establishing a World Trade Organisation with terms favourable to industrialized nations. Destruction of labour codes and collective settlements with impunity became order of the day. A drive for deregulation was mounted against the achievements of the labour in all advanced countries.
Countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America depended upon the west for their investment. Foreign debt created client states toeing America dictated policies causing economic destabilization in several countries. Unemployment and under employment rose manifold. Wealth got concentrated in fewer hands pushing multitudes to utter penury. At the close of 20th century, with the avowed objective of social development, the UN set up a Millennium Fund and recommended donation of 0.7% of national income towards developmental assistance to poor countries. Only five countries, out of the 22 wealthy nations who promised assistance, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Luxumburg and Sweden ever met the target. Poverty, disease, health hazards continued to rise and people in thousands, men, women and children lost lives most of all on the African continent.
In this era of globalisation where brutal unilaterism of the type employed by America in invading and occupying Iraq, reducing UN to a mere silent spectator; where US action has emboldened employers as well as national governments everywhere to bypass democratic processes, the working class, being the most advanced section of the society, has a global responsibility to fulfil.
It was in this backdrop that India opened up its economy and markets, and workers began witnessing a process of reversal of the gains achieved by Indian labour through seven decades of struggle. The decade and a half from the beginning of the nineties was a period of relentless and intensified attack of capital backed by a complicit state on the rights of workers. There was resistance to this onslaught. The resistance needed time to regroup and mature. Today the working class is once again in a position to strongly defend its rights, and forcefully bargain with capital.
Government Policies
In the May 2004 election to the national parliament in India, people overwhelmingly and decisively rejected the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led National Democratic Alliance government’s spurious claim that during its regime it succeeded in creating a “feel good factor” for common people and an “India shining” in all other aspects. Evidently there was never any shining for the hungry and marginalized, forming more than 80% of Indians, earning less than 100 rupees (2 dollars) a day. Over 200 million people still do not have access to safe drinking water. More than 700 million people lack proper sanitation facilities. According to FAO the number of hungry people in India increased by 19 million between 1997 and 2001. India has the highest percentage of anaemic pregnant women in the world. Nearly half of our children remain chronically malnourished. Reforms undertaken by the government did not find any place for workers, poor peasants, adivasis, dalit and other marginalized sections of society. The NDA defeat was also because of the communal fascism it sponsored and systematically practiced throughout the country. The NDA was determined to drive communal fascism into every aspect of life with the objective of causing social disharmony. Communalism divided workers ranks and weakened their bargaining power. It had an adverse impact on democratic trade union movement.
The NDA government made a systematic attempt during its tenure in government to do away with Chapter VB of the Industrial Disputes Act and Section 10 of the Contract Labour Act. By these proposals the government wanted to confer on the employers unfettered right to closure, retrenchment and lay off in business establishments, and bosses would have freedom to employ contract labour as they wished. Class conscious workers and their trade unions valiantly fought against this move and the government was forced to abandon the idea. Awakened by these frontal attacks the working class masses played a significant role in the struggle against these policies and for change of government.
Seeking a change in policies and priorities, people voted the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) led by the Congress to power in May 2004. UPA’s Common Minimum Programme (CMP) received support of India’s left parties. This programme included assurances to workers and unions and laid emphasis on employment generation, and growth with social justice. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his address to the nation, admitted that the economic growth achieved had not touched all citizens in equal measure. He said: “Growth is not an end in itself. It is a means to generate employment, banish poverty, hunger and homelessness and improve the standard of living of our people.”
However the change in government has not led to any perceptible increase in employment. Suicides by farmers and families in rural areas continue and migration of villagers to towns and cities remain unabated. Poverty and income disparity remain as acute as during the previous years.
Change in employment
Traditional industries like textile, jute, plantations and engineering do not provide new employment. Over 450000 industrial units in the country have faced closure. Employment generated in the service sector, in BPOs, call centres, information technology areas, shopping malls, hotels and hospitals is mostly under the contract labour system, where workers have no wage protection and regulation of service conditions. The 8-hour day has become history for an overwhelming majority of workers in the country.
Employers and the governments advocating reforms want to do away with trade unions altogether. Union bashing in its harshest forms is their agenda. They want workplaces free of trade unions. Owners of capital with the connivance of governments in power have managed to prune workforce through technological innovations and outsourcing, changing plant level production patterns, to produce cheaply by using the vast unorganised workers and in the process have succeeded in weakening the bargaining power of the organized workers and the trade unions. Trade unions have not been able to develop a common strategy to counter this onslaught. Employers have brought to focus global competition in their bargain with workers and unions. We are often told that China is the chief hub of cheap production with which Indian producers cannot compete under the prevailing circumstances. We are told that without agreeing for greater labour flexibility we cannot compete in a global market place.
The Government is busy setting up Free Trade Zones and Special Economic Zones in different parts of the country. In these zones workers are employed on contract basis without the protection of labour laws. This is bound to affect regular employment in other sectors adversely. Regular workers in the organised sector forms less than 7% of the total workforce in the country. The new situation has exposed another weakness of the union movement in the country. The intensity of trade union activity to protect workers in the informal and unorganised sectors who constitute the overwhelmingly major part of the workforce has been extremely limited.
Working population in India is around 41 crores of which less than 3 crores are employed in the organized sector. Even workers in the organized sector are not fully unionised. The 38 crore workers in the unorganised and informal sector are for the most part outside the protection of labour laws, although they contribute significantly to the economy. In this new situation, with the offensive of informalisation of the formal sector, of casualisation and contractualisation of formal sector jobs, and continuing lack of basic regulation of employment in the unorganised sector, there is a need to develop working class political power by uniting and mobilizing the ocean of workers in the unorganised sector with those in the organized sector.
Social alliance
An important realization of the New Initiative is that traditional forms of unionisation and collective bargaining are inadequate to face the wide spread onslaught of capital. As capital spreads its tentacles of influence, the working class also has to broaden its resistance. The New Initiative has to apply vigorously to this task and in the course devise new forms of organisation and alliances. Besides trade unions locality wise class unity foras have to be organised.
The new alliance of workers has to include within it concerns of different employment categories and social groups. It has to address issues of social and gender discrimination in an organic manner, both within its own organisations, and as forms of alliance building. It has to include within the ambit of collective bargaining concerns of workers engaged in traditional livelihood, threatened by capital and a state that excludes them from all forms of democratic engagement. It has to represent concerns of the environment and affected communities integrally in its engagement with the capital and state machinery. This is the only way forward for building an inclusive alliance of all workers and affected communities and fight for a democratic and equitable society. This is the biggest challenge before the New Initiative.
What is the way out for unions?
Is the formation of another trade union federation the answer? What is the relevance of this federation in the present situation? Several such questions need to be answered at this juncture, as NTUI takes the step towards its formal constitution. At the risk of repeating myself, I would like to emphasise the following.
From the intent document prepared by us nearly 5 years ago, one of the main objectives of the NTUI was federating all genuine working class organisations in the country. NTUI is the manifestation of the aspiration of unaffiliated unions in the country to increase union bargaining power, expand the base of working class unity and influence trade union solidarity. A conservative estimate shows over 30% workers in India have remained unaffiliated to any centre. From this angle the formation of NTUI is a milestone in the Indian trade union movement. All the more so because this is the first national level trade union centre being built by workers from below.
NTUI represents workers from all sectors of employment, from workers doing most sophisticated production jobs in advanced industries to workers in the informal and unorganised sector like construction, forest, anganwadis, fishing, agriculture etc. This represents the diversity in the working class that the NTUI seeks to represent.
The New Initiative places emphasis on industry level bargaining. Since employers have diversified production through plants and companies in different parts of the country pitting worker against worker and union against union. Success in this area will take away major burden on workers.
For this purpose, I am convinced that there should be unity at the plant, industry and sectoral level among workers and unions. An end to factionalism is a sine qua non for launching a militant fight back. We have to return to the slogan for a unity of all trade union organizations, cutting across the divide of politics. This is an important task before the trade union movement. This is a priority for the NTUI. I have no doubt this would electrify a new enthusiasm among the working class.
The political change in the country has given working class organizations the opportunity to bargain for political space. It has yielded positive features like Employment Guarantee Act and Right to Information Act. Other progressive legislations like the Unorganised Workers Bill have been with the Government for a very long time. This is the juncture when the trade unions can come together and demand the legislation and proper implementation of these acts. We know from experience that implementation of progressive legislation in India is an uphill task. This is a task that needs unified and sustained effort. The New Initiative needs to play a catalytic role along with the other trade union federations in this endeavour.
The call for trade union unity is not new. In the past all major left-democratic trade union centres have publicly affirmed the need for unification. There were reports of AITUC and HMS holding prolonged discussions in this respect. The ferocity of the imperialist globalisation and its impact on labour makes it necessary to renew these efforts for wider trade union unity. There should be deep and genuine unity based on a commitment to democracy, transparency and mutual respect. The New Initiative is committed to work wholehearted with all such efforts.
Trade unions have largely limited their functioning to within the enterprises or narrowly defined work situation of their constituency. This limiting of trade union role excludes a large aspect of the social and political existence of workers in their community. Most unions do not have any organic link with workers and their lives. We need to change this perception if we have to build a broader and democratic working class politics. NTUI lays great emphasis on this aspect. It seeks to engage with the working class community in all its diversity. It seeks to build alliances with organizations of adivasis and dalits, women, youth, students, minority groups, environment groups. They are all allies of the trade union movement in an inclusive working class struggle against capital.
When I look back to the trade union scenario of the 50s and 60s I remember trade unions were invited by the government for consultation before taking major decisions concerning labour. Slowly these consultations became few and far between. The working class organizations became increasingly irrelevant to government decision-making. This is despite the fact that trade unions in our country already have considerable influence on strategic sectors like banks, insurance, railways, ports, aviation, energy, steel, petroleum, mines, postal, telecommunication, defence production, road transport, government, municipalities etc. This is a mighty force if it can act together. Trade unions organised more than ten all India strikes since 1991 against government policies. These strikes, while demonstrating the capacity of the working class to come together, did not produce the desired results. If the combined strength of the labour is directed towards bringing even a part of the 380 million workers in the unorganised sector under the union fold, Indian working class would become a force to reckon with that no government would dare ignore.
There are several positive changes taking place within the imperialist countries. American imperialism is getting more and more exposed, isolated and discredited even within the USA. The American working class has come out against the war in Iraq. In Latin America, Cuba has been joined by Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile in defying the US dictat. Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan have consolidated world opinion against imperialism. We welcome these significant political changes happening the world over. We are sure that this will serve as the backdrop for greater unity of the working class, and greater cooperation of trade unions globally, going beyond the limited ambit of today’s internationalism.
Labour needs a collective and comprehensive strategy to fight exploitation. This is the need of the hour. We must work towards the emancipation of labour, in order to create a just new world order. NTUI commits itself to this task.
Thank you.
Y. V. Chavan
New Delhi, 5 March 2006