An impressive rally was taken by workers and representatives of the All Party Trade Unions Joint Action Committee(JAC) from the DRM Office at Dondaparthy to the RTC Complex on the second day of the two-day general strike against privatisation of PSUs, here on Tuesday.
Employees and workers of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant(VSP), BHEL, HPCL, Hindustan Shipyard Limited, Port, LIC, banks, India Post, BSNL and other PSUs participated in the rally.
The participants raised slogans demanding abolition of labour codes, regularisation of the services of ASHA, Angawadi and Midday Meal workers. They also sought regularisation of contract workers and fixation of Minimum Wage at ₹26,000 and bringing out laws to provide PF and ESI to workers in the unorganised sector.
The rally concluded in a meeting near the RTC Complex. CITU State president Ch. Narasinga Rao alleged that the Centre was trying to privatise roads, railways, gas, petrol piplelines, ports and over 20 other services in the name of monetisation. He said that Visakhapatnam Steel Plant was providing employment to over one lakh persons directly and indirectly.
He attributed the growth of Visakhapatnam as one of the fastest developing cities in Asia to the presence of a large number of PSUs. He alleged that scheme workers like ASHAs, Anganwadis, Midday Meal and VAOs, who were implementing the programmes of the government, were not being paid salaries for the last 13 months.
AITUC national vice-president Adinarayana and CPI State assistant secretary J.V.S.N. Murthy said that they would not tolerate any government which tramples upon the rights of the workers and harms the public sector.
CITU State Committee member P. Mani sought increasing of the minimum wages to ₹26,000 for the workers.
JAC chairman M. Jaggu Naidu presided.
AITUC deputy general secretary Rahman, CPI(M) city secretary B. Ganga Rao and CPI city secretary M. Pydiraju were among those who participated.
