10th All India Conference Of AICCTU Concludes
10th All India Conference of AICCTU Calls for series of Intense Struggles Against Modi BJP Government and for withdrawal of Anti-worker Labour Codes!
A successful three-day conference of AICCTU concluded on 4th March, 2020 at Naihati, West Bengal which saw a participation of around 600 delegates from all over the country. The Conference elected a National council of 187 members, a Central Working Committee (CWC) a Committee of office bearers. Comrade V Shankar was elected as the new President while Comrade Rajiv Dimri was re-elected as the General Secretary.
The conference began on 2nd March with a huge rally and tributes to fallen comrades, at the Martyrs Column at the conference venue.
Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya, General Secretary, CPI-ML Liberation addressed the delegates and called for rigorous campaigning against the Modi government's anti-people policies especially CAA-NPR-NRC. He said that the fascist forces have started a full scale offensive on the country's masses, which is very much evident from the prevailing situations in Delhi. He stressed on the need to build bigger movements and unity to counter these fascist attacks and called upon the trade unions to rally the workers against anti-people designs like CAA-NRC-NPR.
Greetings & Solidarity From Fraternal Organizations
Apart from Comrade H Mahadevan, Deputy General Secretary, World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), guests from different international organizations conveyed their greetings and solidarity to the conference. Comrade Lal Bahadur Pakhrin, Vice President, CONEP - Nepal, Comrade Mehboob bin Saif of Bangladesh Trade Union Centre, Comrade Usman Ali, Vice President - Samajtantrik Shramik Sangh, Bangladesh, Comrade Amarjit Kaur, General Secretary - AITUC, Comrade Anandi Sahu, National Secretary - CITU, Ashok Ghosh, General Secretary - UTUC, Comrade Gautam Modi, General Secretary - NTUI, Comrade Haripad Vishwas from TUCC, Comrade V Veluswamy, Organizational Secretary - LPF, Comrade Samar Sinha, AIUTUC and Master Nizam, INTUC and many other guests delivered speeches on the prevailing conditions in their respective countries, sectors and against Modi led BJP government. They stressed upon the need to build solidarities across borders in order to counter the fierce onslaught of globalization and neoliberalism. Outgoing president of AICCTU and a veteran Comrade Comrade NN Banerjee presided over the inaugural session.
Delegates from various federations including those operating in Indian Railways to those working among scheme workers, building workers, municipal workers etc discussed about the issues faced by cross sections workers.
Major Resolutions
The conference adopted unanimous resolutions after days of debates and discussions, to strengthen the workers' struggle and build up momentum against the attempts to divide and destroy the country through CAA-NRC-NPR. The conference took a serious note of developments in Kashmir and demanded immediate release of political leaders and the people in jail. The conference expressed grief at the killings of people who were mostly from minority community during the Delhi riots and demanded the removal of Home Minister, Amit Shah. The Conference discussed various issues and demands including raising minimum wages to Rs 26000 and rollback of code bills, which abrogate almost all labour laws. organizing country-wide protests and industrial actions against CAA-NRC-NPR and fighting communal-fascist attacks on minorities. Various leaders from scheme workers unions suggested ways to take forward the struggle of scheme workers. Employees from production units of Railways as well as running staffs from different zones, stressed on the need of saving the railways from privatization and corporatization.
The conference resolved to fight against the merger and privatization of banks, railways, defence, PSUs and overall attempts by the Modi Government to sell the resources to corporates. The issue of equal pay to contractual workers and end to contract labour system came up from various states; a resolution supporting the struggles of the contractual, temporary, daily wage workers and to strengthen the struggle for better wages, permanent jobs, social security etc was adopted by the conference. The instances of state repression on activists like in the Bhima-Koregaon case, abuse of sedition and other laws were condemned by the house and a resolution to fight such clampdowns and curtailing of democratic spaces was also passed. The attention of the participants was drawn to the recent Supreme Court judgments on reservations in appointments and promotions. The delegates agreed that such judgments as well as Modi's policies have badly hampered the cause of social justice and it was resolved that the fight would be taken strongly to ensure implementation and betterment of policies regarding social justice. Increasing number of factory fires, sewer-deaths, accidents at workplaces including mines and construction sites due to government policies attracted much condemnation and it was agreed to put AICCTU at the forefront of struggle to guarantee workplace safety. The issues relating to women workers and dignified employment opportunities to people from LGBTIQ community were discussed; and that the prevailing patriarchal mindset at workplaces should be immediately fought was unanimously agreed and adopted by all delegates of the conference.
The conference unanimously adopted the General Secretary report with amendments as explained by Comrade Rajiv Dimri, amendments to Constitution and also passed some major resolutions on topical political and workers issues. The conference was concluded by newly elected President Shankar V with a call to fight fascism and attacks against working class by Modi government.
The conference paid respects with standing ovation, congratulated and felicitated all volunteers who worked tirelessly for success of the conference. With inspiring revolutionary songs, sloganeering and internationale, the 3 days conference concluded in full spirits and in a positive note.
Foil Every Design That Tries to Divide Us
[CPIML General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya’s address at the 10th All India AICCTU Conference]
IT is a great pleasure and honour for me to greet you all at this tenth all India conference of the AICCTU. The conference celebrates the glorious history of one hundred years of organised trade union movement in India, and thirty years of AICCTU, and I join you to pay homage to the countless martyrs who have strengthened the movement with their supreme acts of sacrifice. We respectfully remember the leaders in whose name you have christened the venue of this conference - Santosh Kumari Devi, who is perhaps India's first woman trade union leader who organised and led the jute workers of Bengal in the 1920s, and comrades Swapan Mukherjee, DP Bakshi, Sudarshan Bose and Hari Singh, our beloved leaders who passed away in recent past. I also salute the memories of comrades Gurudas Dasgupta and Kshiti Goswami, veteran leaders of the Left trade union movement whom we have lost in 2019. I also take this opportunity to salute all our comrades who are languishing in jails, the brave fighting comrades of Maruti and Pricol who have been sentenced to life imprisonment and the lawyer leader of Chhattisgarh workers, Comrade Sudha Bharadwaj who has been booked under the draconian UAPA, and other human rights activists arrested along with her, and demand their immediate unconditional release.
As a former general secretary of AICCTU, I am happy to note the recent expansion of the organisation in various states and sectors. It's especially encouraging to see the growing integration of AICCTU with railway and defence workers. In the 1960s and 1970s I used to hear from my father, who was an employee with the Indian railways, that the railways was the biggest sector for organised workers with a strength of about three million workers. Even in the 1990s when I was directly associated with TU work, the strength was above two million. Now in spite of continuing introduction of more trains and new routes, the strength has gone down to an alarmingly low level amidst growing push for privatisation. I hope the growing integration of AICCTU with the railway and defence workers' struggles, we will see a more powerful and determined resistance to privatisation. It is also heartening to note the growing presence of women workers in the ranks and leadership of AICCTU with the remarkable advance of scheme workers as a fighting contingent of the Indian working class. At a time when Jammu and Kashmir has been stripped of its constitutional status and its very statehood and total denial of democracy in everyday lives of the people, it is encouraging to learn about the recent formation of an AICCTU state unit in Jammu and Kashmir.
We are holding this conference in Naihati, a long-standing centre of the working class movement. We heard about the pioneering role of Santosh Kumari Devi who organised the workers to fight for their rights as workers and also for the freedom of the country from the shackles of British rule. The working class movement grew hand in hand with the freedom movement in the country and workers played a leading role in organising other sections of the society. The rise of anti-colonial nationalism meant unity of the people across religious and linguistic divisions and a policy of increasing nationalisation of productive resources and production. Today the BJP talks about nationalism, but its nationalism means growing marginalisation of religious and linguistic minorities and suppression of diversity under increasing centralisation, its nationalism means systematic denationalisation and destruction of public sector to hand over the reins of the economy to private hands. In fact, this government is allergic to the very term 'Azaadi' or freedom. In Delhi we have just seen how policemen tortured and killed unarmed Muslim youth gleefully telling them that this was a dose of the freedom they wanted. Evidently we are dealing with a government which celebrates slavery, they collaborated with the British rulers when the country fought for freedom and now in power they are trying to subject us to renewed slavery on all fronts.
Today we are witnessing an unprecedented assault on our Constitution, on our citizenship and the whole range of rights the Constitution guarantees to the citizens. But this unprecedented assault has also given rise to unprecedented protests of the people, powered by the massive participation and resolve of students and women and the minority community. The working class will have to overcome all inertia and join this protest movement with all its strength. When the government challenges our citizenship in the name of NRC or NPR, and links our citizenship to religion by amending the Citizenship Act, it actually conspires against all the rights we enjoy as citizens - the right to vote, the right to freedom of speech and assembly, the right to organise and fight for better conditions and higher wages. The attack on labour rights and labour laws and the attack on citizenship are two faces of the same coin, part and parcel of the same project. When they are attacking anti-CAA protestors with loud chants of their latest slogan 'shoot the traitor', please understand all of us could be termed as traitors and attacked with bullets. This slogan and campaign of violence will not remain confined to anti-CAA, anti-NRC, anti-NPR protests, it is a blueprint to suppress every legitimate movement. It will be used against us when we fight for jobs, wages and social security, when we resist privatisation, outsourcing or downsizing.
As inheritors of the glorious legacy of the Indian working class movement we must play our due role at this hour of crisis. Our strength lies in our unity. We must foil every design to divide us on the basis of religion or language or caste. Our strength lies in our consciousness and rich experience of struggle. Our strength lies in our historic legacy and mission to fight against all odds for the complete achievement of our goals. We must harness all our energy and strength to expand our unity, consolidate our organisation and sharpen our struggles. Just as the working class movement originated and grew in India as a leading contingent of the freedom movement, it will advance today as a formidable bulwark of anti-fascist resistance, as a fighting citadel of democracy and socialism.
Wish your conference every success.
