Accusing the BJP-led Central government of allowing expropriation public assets to the private corporate firms on the pretext of reforms, Centre of Indian Trade Union (CITU) all India president K. Hemalata on Thursday hailed the struggle waged by the employees of Dredging Corporation of India Limited (DCIL) against the proposed strategic sale of the PSU.
“It is the agitation by the employees and suicide by a worker against privatisation, the Centre has decided to consider takeover of the company by Visakhapatnam, Paradip and New Mangalore ports,” she said during her inaugural address at the national working committee meeting of CITU, at Ukkunagaram.
Addressing a gathering in presence of CITU general secretary Tapan Sen and State president Ch. Narsinga Rao, Ms. Hemalata alleged that the BJP government was ‘hell-bent’ on weakening the public sector units by opening the floodgate of privatisation. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi is trying to privatise vital sectors such as defence and railways with an ulterior motive,” she said.
Unemployment
World-wide struggles, Ms. Hemalata said, were continuing against privatisation, unemployment and pay cuts. Referring to the October report of World Economic Forum (WEF), she said it had predicted that majority of task hours would be taken over by machines by 2025 as automation and artificial intelligence were being given a priority. Coming down heavily on the attacks on Left party activists in Tripura by BJP activists and in West Bengal by their Trinamool Congress counterparts, she alleged that both the parties were resorting to terror tactics to weaken the Opposition parties.
Nationwide strike
The CITU working committee will discuss the decisions taken at its general council held in March and finalise an action plan for nationwide general strike that has been called on January 8 and 9.
