Districts across North Karnataka saw peaceful protests on Wednesday with processions taken out and demonstrations staged in response to a call by labour organisations and employees federation for a nation-wide strike against what they called anti-farmer and anti-people policies of the Union government.
In response to the call given by the Joint Committee of Trade Unions (JCTU), hundreds of workers from different sectors, including banking , insurance, transport and BSNL, municipal employees, headload workers, accredited social health activists (ASHAs), anganwadi workers, gram panchayat employees, contract workers, farmers, pro-Kannada and Dalit organisations, took out protest marches and staged demonstrations.
They said that the Centre had failed to meet their long-pending demands, including immediate stop to steps on privatisation, and instead had continued with anti-farmer and anti-people policies. As a large number of protesters gathered on the main streets, vehicular movement was affected for some time, but the protests concluded peacefully.
In Hubballi, hundreds of workers from different sectors, including banking, insurance and unorganised, took out a protest march from Ambedkar’s statue to Brindavan Circle where the statue of freedom fighter Sangolli Rayanna is located. In Dharwad, the protestors took out a protest march from Jubilee Circle to the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Dharwad. In both Hubballi and Dharwad, protest meetings were held in which the speakers strongly condemned the functioning of the Union government.
The protestors demanded common minimum wages of ₹ 21,000, abolition of pro-corporate and anti-labour policies, establishment of labour courts in all districts, minimum pension of ₹ 10,000, steps to stop disinvestment in public sector undertakings and privatisation, job security for workers of unorganised sector and urged for the fulfilment of various demands that had already been placed before the Union government.
Similar protests were held in Haveri, Gadag, Karwar, Bagalkot, Vijayapura, Belagavi and in major towns and cities of the region.
Meanwhile, shops and commercial establishments functioned normally and so did public transport buses, autorickshaws and other modes of transports. However, employees of banks, BSNL, transport and others abstained from attending to their duties on Wednesday.
