The Hindu : Strike hits banking, insurance sectors

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 25, 2004

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Strike hits banking, insurance sectors

By Aarti Dhar

Passengers wait on a deserted platform at the Howrah station in Kolkata on Tuesday during a day-long strike called by the Left-affiliated trade unions in protest against the Supreme Court order banning strikes by government employees. — Photo: Sushanta Patronobish

NEW DELHI, FEB. 24. An estimated 50 million people — including Government employees — observed a nationwide general strike today, demanding a review of the Supreme Court judgment on the right to strike and reversal of the Government's economic policies.

While the strike was total in the Left-ruled States, it affected normal life in the rest of the country. The financial sector was affected with the employees of banks and insurance companies joining the strike. There were reports of lathicharge and arrests in some States.

The strike, called by the central trade unions and industrial federations, was total in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura and resulted in a "bandh-like" situation in Assam, Haryana, Orissa and Jharkhand. In Tamil Nadu, Government employees and teachers did not participate as they had been penalised last year for abstaining from work. The Indian National Trade Union Congress, supported by the Congress, and the Sangh Parivar-backed Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and Hind Mazdoor Sabha also kept away.

The president of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), M.K. Pandhe, told presspersons that the working class had "magnificently responded" to the strike call. The working class had asserted its right to strike in the face of the prohibition by the Supreme Court, the "disastrous" economic policies of the Centre — which had resulted in deepening poverty, growing unemployment, reckless privatisation and closures — and the repeated attacks on the labour class. "The massive response to the strike by the working class thoroughly exposes the hollowness of the massive propaganda blitz by the National Democratic Alliance Government on the so called feel good factor."

There were reports of lathicharge and large-scale arrests in Delhi, Haryana, Orissa and Pondicherry. No flights took off from Kolkata and rail traffic was disrupted at several places.

Despite opposition from some unions, the strike hit operations in the Kolkata, Haldia, Cochin, Gujarat, Paradip, Tuticorin and Mumbai ports. Oil installations in Tripura, Assam, West Bengal and Bihar were affected, the CITU representatives claimed.

A large number of coal miners, employees of public sector undertakings in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam, plantation workers, construction labourers and those employed in the steel plants in Salem, Durgapur and Burnpur also took part in the strike.

The CITU, the All-India Trade Union Congress, the All-India Central Council of Trade Unions, the Trade Union Coordination Centre, the United Trade Union Centre and the UTUC (LS) backed the strike. The All-India Bank Employees Association, the All-India Insurance Employees Association, the All-India State Government Employees Federation and the Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers also supported it. Over 15 lakh civilians employed in the defence production sector and some employees of the Income Tax department also extended their support.

"The strike was to protest against the fraud being perpetrated by way of the feel good factor by the Government. If India is really shining, the response would not have been so massive," the AITUC general secretary, Gurudas Dasgupta, said.

He charged the Congress with backing the NDA by not coming out with its stand on the Centre's economic policies. "The struggle will continue, irrespective of which ever party comes to power, and till there is a total reversal of these policies," he said.

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