30 June 2021: The New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI) congratulates the 150,000+ workers of the public sector Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) across the country for their remarkable militant united strike action today. This strike action was unprecedented in bringing together permanent, contract and casual workers all striving for better wages and working conditions against a management that has stalled good faith negotiations for four-and-a-half years.
The strike action began yesterday with a spirited strike at Vishakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP). VSP workers have been agitating the privatisation of their plant since the start of the year. In the other steel plants at Bhilai, Burnpur and Durgapur the strike was significantly successful. In Bokaro, Bhadravati, Rourkela and Salem the strike was total.
At Bokaro, NTUI affiliates the Jharkhand Krantikari Mazdoor Union and the Jai Jharkhand Mazdoor Samaj not just succeeded in uniting all permanent and contract workers they also were able to take the strike into the township bringing the town to a standstill as well.
The unity we have witnessed is a lesson to those permanent workers’ unions who resisted or vacillated over the strike action. Most of all, what the strike brings forth, where it was most successful is that today contract workers’ control over production exceeds that of the permanent workers. If workers are to get ahead they can get ahead together and united. Permanent workers cannot get ahead without taking the more numerous contract workers with them.
This strike gives notice to the SAIL management and to all employers. They have indeed attacked the wage share through this pandemic but let them not be fooled that union power has declined. Even today, SAIL is yet to make adequate financial provisions for the back log of wages starting from 1 January 2017. Even today, SAIL computes its productivity counting only its permanent staff. On the shop floor there are two-and-a-half times the number of contract workers as there are permanent workers.
Let the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its government be warned. It can virtually write down the right to association and the right to collective bargaining. It can outlaw strikes. But a working class united cannot be defeated. Let it not forget every member of the working class has been a ‘covid warrior’. The workers of SAIL have made steel through this pandemic. And when the country came to a standstill because a heartless and dysfunctional government had no preparation for the second wave of the pandemic, it was the workers of SAIL who manufactured more medical oxygen than all of the private sector put together. They worked three shifts and overtime and on Sundays. They saved lives unlike those who were elected to protect the Right to Life. Some 1500+ of them lost the fight with the virus and the families of those who were not permanent staff haven’t even been compensated.
Today these warriors of working class stood up to harsh and inhuman government. They stood up to threats of dismissal and victimisation. They saw off designs to provoke violence at their marches, their rallies, their pickets and their public meetings. Those who stand up to oppression always win.
The warriors of the working class are the warriors of society. They are the warriors for a fair, just and democratic society.
Workers United will never be defeated!
Inquilab Zindabad!
Gautam Mody
General Secretary