With major Central trade unions barring the BMS throwing their collective weight behind it, the countrywide 24-hour trade union strike was almost total in Kerala on Wednesday.
Except for few pockets here and there, the entire State went in for a near total shutdown with almost no road traffic and closure of shops, markets, educational institutions, and businesses and industrial establishments. Although offices, banks, and various public utilities remained open, attendance was thin. At the Secretariat here, the attendance was a low 21.48 per cent.
Services of the public sector Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) remained suspended for the whole day and taxis, lorries, autorikshaws, and public and private carriages mostly remained off the roads. In the industrial belt in Kochi, the strike hit the functioning of major industrial units, the Kochi Port and Cochin Shipyard. The Infopark in Kochi and the Technopark here functioned, though with a marginally low attendance, as the companies arranged convoy services to transport the employees. The strike did not disrupt train services, but those who landed by flights and those who had reached the airports here and in Kochi for onward journeys had a harrowing time.
The police was on hand at major bus and railway stations providing assistance to the public, particularly to the ill and the aged. The striking workers, employees, and teachers staged marches in all districts. Addressing a rally in front of the Secretariat, INTUC State president R. Chandrasekharan and CITU State general secretary Anathalavattom Anandan came down heavily on the Narendra Modi government for heaping largesse on the corporate sector even as it took away the hard won rights of the labour class and drove the poor to greater deprivation.
Attendance thin
at offices
Functioning of industrial units hit
