Various trade unions on Monday took a vow to relentlessly struggle for the scrapping of the four new Labour codes brought in by the BJP-led Union Government.
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Painting the city red with colourful buntings and flexis, the workers took out huge processions from the offices of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), and Indian Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) in the town, to mark the International Workers’ Day.
‘Unprecdented inflation’
Speaking on the occasion, CITU city vice-president G. Ramesh called for a united struggle by all sections of people against the “anti-people policies” of the Centre. He said that the working people struggled to cope with an unprecedented rise in the prices of all essential commodities, including fuel.
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The Centre had no right to sell public sector units built with the toil of the working class, said AITUC district secretary P.V.R. Chowdhary.
After unfurling the trade union flags, they raised slogans against the four new codes—the Code on Wages, Industrial Relations Code, Social Security Code, and Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code.
‘Thwart privatisation spree’
The privatisation spree of the Narendra Modi government should be thwarted at any cost, CPI Prakasam district secretary M.L. Narayana said after the workers raised slogans to save the public sector Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP).
The eight hours of work, achieved after long-drawn struggles, was under serious threat, lamented CPI(ML) New Democracy State assistant secretary Ch. Venkateswarlu. He called for a struggle along the lines of the historic 1886 Chicago protest, which laid the foundation for the formulation of an eight-hour workday rule.
Activists of Arunodaya, an outfit of the CPI(ML) New Democracy, performed a skit to highlight the “anti-labour policies” of the Union Government.