The one-day strike organised by 10 central trade unions across the country on Friday received lukewarm response from workers, top labour ministry officials said. However, the strike received strong response from trade unions in labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya’s home state Telangana, officials said.
The strike call was given by the central trade unions to demand higher minimum wage, social security for unorganised sector, among other demands. “The impact of the nation-wide strike has been minimal in most of the states,” the official said, “Only in few states such as Kerala, Tripura, Telangana, we have received information that industries have been impacted due to closure of establishments.”
Union Labour Ministry officials said except coal and banking, none of the sectors saw major impact.
“Coal and banking sectors are reported to have been impacted to an extent. Other sectors are absolutely unaffected,” the official added.
Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu termed Friday’s strike “illogical.” “Today’ strike is illogical. The government has proactively increased minimum wage by 42 per cent,” he said, speaking at the sidelines of an event in Chennai.
The Centre had announced a slew of measures on Tuesday including hiking the minimum wage for central public sector unit workers, vowing to provide medical facilities to unorganised workers and urging states to register trade unions within 45 days. However, dissatisfied with the government’s response, all central trade unions, except Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) have joined the nation-wide strike.
The charter of demands includes hike in minimum wages, providing social security to scheme workers, speedy registration of trade unions, among others. The unions have also opposed the government’s proposed labour law reforms terming them as “pro-capitalist” and “one-sided” measures.
