Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has assured garment workers that he will consult the police and initiate measures to withdraw cases booked against them during the recent agitation against the now-withdrawn amendments to the Employee Provident Fund (EPF) Scheme by the Union government.
He was speaking at a May Day programme in the city. Over 200 garment workers, booked on the charge of attempt to murder, among others, are now in jail.
Mr. Siddaramaiah also congratulated garment workers on what he called “a historic successful workers’ movement” that forced the Union government to roll back the “ill-conceived amendments to the EPF Scheme”, thereby benefiting workers across the country.
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Earlier in the day, demonstrations and May Day celebrations organised by various trade unions were focussed on the garment workers’ protest and the plight of the arrested workers.
A large number of workers from Garments and Textile Workers Union and Garment Labour Union took out protest marches at Freedom Park and Laggere respectively and demanded that all the cases against workers be immediately withdrawn and they be freed from prison.
While, the All India Trade Union Congress observed the day as a “solidarity day with garment workers”, the programmes of other unions also resonated on the same theme. Aam Aadmi Party demanded that the government initiate action against police personnel who assaulted women garment workers during the protests.
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K.R. Jayaram of GATWU said their other demands were that the minimum wage of garment workers and other segments be raised to Rs. 18,000, as per the seventh pay commission recommendation.
Chief Minister
to consult police
on withdrawing cases against garment workers