New Delhi, Aug 31: Majority of trade unions have given call for Bharat Bandh, nationwide strike, on September 2 rejecting government’s request to postpone the protest. Leading trade unions including All India Trade Unions Congress (AITUC) and Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) have threatened to go on strike on September 2 bringing banks, factories and other organized sectors to a standstill across the nation. CITU general secretary Tapan Sen and INTUC vice president Ashok Singh have refused to call of the strike. Nearly 5 lakh other bank union workers and officers are set to join the strike. The Auto rickshaws had also protested a rally yesterday in Odisha in support of the Bandh to be called on Sept 2.
In order to fight the consequences of the strike or to aver it, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held an emergency meeting with Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Power and Coal minister Piyush Goyal and Union Labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya. The government will reach out to the unions with an offer. The government is hoping that their new offer to trade unions will avert the strike.
The unions had given their ’12-point charter of demands’ to the government in September last year, but no action has been taken on it so far. The unions have demanded to raise minimum wage from Rs. 9,000 to Rs. 18,000 per month. The unions demanded a stop to the disinvestment of Coal India, end to allocations of coal blocks to private companies, settlement of wage revision of contact workers as well as outsourcing workers working in the coal industry. The unions have also objected government’s move of inviting more foreign investment particularly in sectors like pharmaceutical and defense, where, they say, national security could be compromised.
Meanwhile, West Bengal government directed all its employees to report for work on September 2, when central trade unions have called a countrywide strike. The Mamata Banerjee government has also warned that anyone who remains absent a day prior to it and the next working day will be showcased.
The role of Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), a major union linked to the ruling BJP’s ideological mentor, the RSS, was criticized by the trade union as the outfit opted out from the September 2 strike after holding meeting with government’s panel of Jaitley, Goyal and Dattatreya. The government excluded other trade unions from the meet.
