A four-day general council meeting of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) began here on Friday with a call to evolve an alternative policy using the trade union platform to take on the Narendra Modi government.
In her address to the delegates, CITU president K. Hemalata made a fervent call to the working class of all hues to expose the politics behind the neo-liberal policies of the BJP-led government at the Centre. Trade unions needed to actively engage in contemporary social issues such as attacks on Dalits, minorities, rationalists and journalists by right-wing forces and the suppression of women in BJP-ruled States.
Violence flayed
Two resolutions, one condemning the violent attacks on workers in Tripura and the other expressing solidarity with the trade union’s call for a general strike in Kerala on April 2 against the Centre’s order for fixed-term employment, were adopted at the meeting.
The meeting said the alternative policy should be formulated in the present framework focussing on improving the lives of the working class, stopping the exploitation of tribespeople, solving the agrarian crisis, women empowerment, social justice and employment generation and providing free education to all.
Dr. Hemalata said that campaigns highlighting the failure of the BJP government to address inequality should percolate down to the grass-roots level. On the one hand the RSS and the BJP projected B.R. Ambedkar as a Hindu icon but on the other stood for the ideology of Manu Smriti. The onus was on the trade unions to channelise the discontentment that was brewing among the people to defeat the neo-liberal and privatisation policies of the Centre.
She said the disenchantment was reflected in the recently held bypolls in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. However, the common man should know that their resources were cornered by corporates. All the policies of the BJP government was actually depriving the toiling class and peasants of their rights and benefits.
A mass mobilisation programme was being chalked out in New Delhi in mid-2018. The State committees of the CITU should take up the task to strengthen the future struggles to defeat the BJP in 2019 Lok Sabha poll, Dr. Hemalata said. CITU general secretary Tapan Sen presented a report on the activities of the organisation. The general council will also update the organisation document approved by the previous general council held in Bhubaneswar in 1993.
