Two day Nationwide General Strike of Workers on 28-29 March 2022 Receives Tremendous Response
The Farmers, Students, Youth, Women came in Support
The Joint Platform of the Central Trade Unions and the independent Sectoral Federations and Associations congratulates the workers of all sectors, organised and unorganized, the govt. departments, the public sector, the private establishments, small-medium-micro enterprises, rural and urban working people, having participated in different ways, made a grand success of this two day general strike. The participation crossed 20 crores facing all odds, ESMA, intimidation, and obstructions of all kinds including the high handedness of police in some cases and high court order in Kerala prohibiting strike for BPCL and Govt. employees.
The workers and employees in banks, insurance companies did not enter their work places anywhere in India. The coal, Vizag steel, oil and LPG plants, powergrid, copper, telecom sector, cement sector workers struck work in a big way from the morning of 28th March. Electricity Workers went on strike in all the states, including in Maharashtra, where the Government had invoked ESMA. The port workers at Tuticorin and Paradip also struck work. The Kerala state unions began strike action from midnight of 27-28 March itself. The employees of Railways and Defence sector are reported to have organized militant demonstrations at more than one thousand places across the country. The Anganwadi, ASHA, Mid-day Meal and Domestic Workers, Construction, Beedi, Tea and Agricultural Workers, Hawkers-vendors joined the strike and participated in protest actions in several hundreds of spots in Chakka jam, road roko, rail rook programmes in various parts of the country. The Road Transport workers in Haryana began their strike by picketing at Depots from early morning of 28th March, also in defiance of ESMA and continued on 29th. Private sector industrial units including many MNCs witnessed massive strike action on both the days in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Telangana and Haryana. Hydel power projects also witnessed massive strike in Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Uttrakhand and Jammu & Kashmir.
There is bandh like situation in the states of Tamilnadu, Kerala, Puducherry, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tripura, Assam, Haryana, Jharkhand and also in many districts in other states. The strike is substantial in the industrial areas in the states of Goa, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Bihar, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh. The Security Workers even in Sikkim have gone on strike. The Industrial areas of Delhi, HP, Gujarat, J&K, are reported strike. 50000 Government employees picketed Central Government offices in 300 places in Tamilnadu. Central Govt employees in postal deptt, Income Tax audit, GSI and others too have joined the strike in a massive way. Even Fishermen did not venture into sea in the morning.
The Farmers have mobilized in rural areas as per the decision of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha, in favour of the Strike action, pressing for their six demands, along with the support to workers demands The farmers and agricultural workers also participated along with striking workers in organizing road-blockade including many national highways and Rail-blockade actively.
The protesters were addressed by those leading the strikers and the protesters. They alleged that the national resources and the national assets including infrastructure, all has been put on sale by BJP led govt. at Centre for the benefits of the Corporates of Indian and foreign brand. The working class, which creates national wealth, is being made defenceless with draconian changes in Labour laws, weakening their trade unions, taking away their right to strike, doing away with factory inspections, and so on. The voice of workers will be stifled. They expressed their worries that the unemployment level has reached 12 percent and the youth below 25 years of age are the majority among the unemployed as per govt's own statistics. The prices of petrol, diesel and gas are once again rising post elections in five states. National Monetisation Pipeline project is being pushed through to hand over all infrastructure PSUs virtually free to private corporates.Emboldened by the results of election in five states the policy of selling out of land of the Central Public Sector enterprises has been rolled out, the interest rate on the provident fund of workers has been brought down from 8.5 to 8.1 percent, the privatisation of banks is being talked about vigorously, selling of substantial portion of LIC funds, the talks of report of Supreme Court committee on farm laws is being in the air.
The unions in Delhi organized a protest demonstration at Jantar Mantar on 29th March 2022 addressed by the Central leaders of the Central Trade Unions (CTUs) among others.
Those who addressed the gathering included Amarjeet Kaur (AITUC), Harbhajan Singh Sidhu (HMS), Tapan Sen (CITU), R K Sharma (AIUTUC), G Devrajan (TUCC), Lata (SEWA), Rajiv Dimri (AICCTU), Mohan (LPF), Suresh Dagar (UTUC), Santosh (MEC), Narender (ICTU).
Binoy Viswam, Member of Parliament-Rajya Sabha and Hannan Mollah on behalf of SKM also addressed the gathering.
The unionists recognised that the demand of time is to strengthen the workers- peasants unity to put up vigorous struggle against tyrant regime at Centre which has not only failed the nation but is also letting loose the vicious divisive agenda in detriment to the core values of Indian constitution and harmonious living of Indian people with diverse religious beliefs, cultures, languages.
INTUC | AITUC | HMS | CITU | AIUTUC | TUCC | SEWA | AICCTU | LPF | UTUC | And Independent Sectoral Federations/Associations.