First Anniversary Of 21st February Trade Union Strike: Workers' Protest Demanding Their Rights
By AICCTU& RYA
22 February, 2014
Countercurrents.org
Hundreds of workers gathered in front of City Magistrate Office in Noida (India) demanding the release of their fellow comrades falsely arrested during the nationwide trade union strike on February 21st 2013. Many workers belonging to various trade unions are still logged in jail and charged with false cases under the direction of UP Government to protect the vested interests of bourgeoisie industrialists. Also the workers protested against the exploitation under the hands of police-capitalists-government nexus and demanded their basic rights. The protest was organized under the banner of All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) and Revolutionary Youth Association (RYA).
Santosh Rai, general secretary (Delhi/NCR) of AICCTU asked the workers to unite against the tyranny of the unholy nexus between government and bourgeoisie industrialists. Speaking against the phenomenon of contract lobouring he argued it is nothing more than state sanctioned slavery. Aslam Khan, National Vice President of Revolutionary Youth Association (RYA) remembering the great struggle by workers on 21st and 22nd February 2013 during the nationwide trade union strike called for the unconditional release of all workers falsely charged and arrested. “Noida is industrial hub, mostly manufacturing, and the government is receiving huge revenue from this area but unfortunately workers are not befitting from this. Workers are severely exploited and made to work for more than 13 hours. This huge revenue is workers labour and they have the right over it” Aslam said.
Rakhi Sehgal, Vice President, Hero Honda Theka Mazdoor Sangathan, Dharuhera (affiliated to NTUI) said that the domestic workers should also be given the status of workers and the household should be declared as a workplace. She argued that state should ensure the 8 hours working time limit and minimum wages for domestic workers by bringing in domestic workers protection laws. Farahan, from All India Students Association (AISA) Jamia unit criticized the ‘Modi Tea’ drama. “ On one hand Modi is helping capitalists in suppressing the workers’ voices in Gujarat and on the other he is calling himself the ‘friend’ of workers. Fascists like Modi are not workers friend but their enemy” said Farahan.
Shivaji of AICCTU (Noida) spoke about the various demands of workers including 8 hours working time, minimum wages, scrapping of contract labouring urban employment guarantee scheme, proper implementation of laws relating female workers, regularization of slums, and social security card for construction workers. He warned that if the state fails to hear the demands of workers and contunie their oppression for the vested interests of the capitalist, the nation will again witness another trade union strike. Hareram Yadav, AICCTU (Khoda) who was jailed last year on false charges during the trade union strike, recited a poem depicting the capitalist-police-government nexus and the corporate loot. He called upon the workers to stand demand for their rights because the “producers of the wealth are the real owners of the wealth”.
Later the workers submitted a memorandum to UP Chief Minister through the city magistrate with following demands:
1. End contractual labour policy in both public and private sectors.
2. Give a deadline to provide pucca houses for the people living in jhuggis.
3. Implement minimum wages/15000/8 hours, workplace safety norms, along with other labour laws in all companies, factories, hotels and shops in Noida.
4. Ensure that employers provide identity card to all workers.
5. Enact laws to guarantee urban employment with the provision for assured employment for 200 days along with the provision to provide compensation in case of unemployment for sustenance.
6. Ensure speedy issuance of Social Security card for all construction workers
7. Give deadline for giving licenses and dedicated space for all the hawkers, feriwalas, vendors and rickshaw-walas in Noida.
8. Implement existing laws for women workers under which they can avail all the facilities including crèche and toilets at the earliest
9. Enact Domestic Workers Law along the lines of the laws for domestic workers in Maharashtra. 10. Start a Workers helpline to address the workers’ grievances and special squads to ensure speedy action on these grievances.
11. Increase the number of labor inspectors, factory inspectors, etc to ensure that labor laws are adhered to in work places and provide a labor court in every industrial zone.
12. Ensure proper organization of ration shops and provide ration cards to all citizens at the earliest along with crackdown on ration card fraud.
13. Ensure proper drainage of dirty water in all the jhuggies-basties of the area along with cleaning, repairing the supply of clean water, and road repairs.
We Have Fed You All For a Thousand Years
Poem—By an Unknown Proletarian
We have fed you all, for a thousand years
And you hail us still unfed,
Though there's never a dollar of all your wealth
But marks the worker's dead.
We have yielded our best to give you rest
And you lie on crimson wool.
Then if blood be the price of all your wealth,
Good God! We have paid it in full.
There is never a mine blown skyward now
But we're buried alive for you.
There's never a wreck drifts shoreward now
But we are its ghastly crew.
Go reckon our dead by the forges red
And the factories where we spin.
If blood be the price of your cursed wealth
Good God! We have paid it in.
We have fed you all for a thousand years—
For that was our doom, you know,
From the days when you chained us in your fields
To the strike of a week ago.
You have taken our lives, and our babies and wives,
And we're told it's your legal share;
But if blood be the price of your lawful wealth
Good God! We have bought it fair.
By All India Central Council of Trade Union (AICCTU) and Revolutionary Youth Association (RYA), of Communists Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation.
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