The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has found a common ground with other trade unions this year. It will go on a one-day protest outside Parliament in the winter session in November, protesting against unequal pay for workers and disinvestment of public sector units.
However, the BMS will not join a similar protest called by 10 other central trade unions pressing for their charter of demands in the winter session of Parliament.
“We have decided to go for a ‘March to Delhi’ on November 17 to demand the implementation of the equal pay for similar workers law, protest against disinvestment of public sector units and to demand social security for all workers,” BMS general secretary Virjesh Upadhyay said.
Three-day dharna
Last week, the 10 central trade unions announced a three-day dharna from November 9 to 11 outside Parliament against rising unemployment and the Central government’s alleged inaction on their charter of demands.
The decision of the labour unions was taken at the National Convention of Workers held on August 8 to which the BMS was not invited. It was attended by representatives of INTUC, AITUC, HMS, CITU, AIUTUC, TUCC, SEWA, AICCTU, UTUC and LPF and federation of employees representing various sectors such as banking, pharmaceuticals, petroleum and construction.
“Both the Central and State governments are disobeying contract labour regulations which mandate equal pay for similar nature of jobs. Further, the logic behind disinvestment was to form a fund to finance sick PSUs. However, the government seems to be moving in a different direction,” he said.
Interestingly, the resolution adopted by the 10 central trade unions at the convention also highlighted issues related to equal pay and benefits for equal work for contract workers, disinvestment, and universal social security, among others.
Asked why the BMS is not joining the other trade unions in their protest, Mr. Upadhyay said, “The nomenclature of the protest and the ideologies are different. Historically if you see, we have been together, separated, came back together and now are separate.”
Unity in 2009
For the first time in 2009, all the central trade unions came together on a common platform to formulate a charter of demands jointly. However, cracks started to appear in the joint trade union movement after the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) came to power in 2014.
The BMS, after initially calling for a nationwide strike along with all other central trade unions in September 2015, pulled out of the strike action at the last moment declaring they were satisfied with the government’s response towards their demands. Other unions claimed that the strike, targeting the government’s labour reform agenda, was successful with the participation of 15 crore employees.
Similarly, the BMS didn’t participate in the nationwide strike called in by other central trade union in September 2016.
