50 Million Strike in India

Strike hits banking, insurance sectors

By Aarti Dhar

http://www.thehindu.com/2004/02/25/stories/2004022504720100.htm

NEW DELHI, FEB. 24. An estimated 50 million people —
including Government employees — observed a nationwide
general strike today, demanding a review of the Supreme
Court judgment on the right to strike and reversal of
the Government’s economic policies.

While the strike was total in the Left-ruled States, it
affected normal life in the rest of the country. The
financial sector was affected with the employees of
banks and insurance companies joining the strike. There
were reports of lathicharge and arrests in some States.

The strike, called by the central trade unions and
industrial federations, was total in West Bengal,
Kerala and Tripura and resulted in a "bandh-like"
situation in Assam, Haryana, Orissa and Jharkhand. In
Tamil Nadu, Government employees and teachers did not
participate as they had been penalised last year for
abstaining from work. The Indian National Trade Union
Congress, supported by the Congress, and the Sangh
Parivar-backed Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and Hind Mazdoor
Sabha also kept away.

The president of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions
(CITU), M.K. Pandhe, told presspersons that the working
class had "magnificently responded" to the strike call.
The working class had asserted its right to strike in
the face of the prohibition by the Supreme Court, the
"disastrous" economic policies of the Centre — which
had resulted in deepening poverty, growing
unemployment, reckless privatisation and closures — and
the repeated attacks on the labour class. "The massive
response to the strike by the working class thoroughly
exposes the hollowness of the massive propaganda blitz
by the National Democratic Alliance Government on the
so called feel good factor."

There were reports of lathicharge and large-scale
arrests in Delhi, Haryana, Orissa and Pondicherry. No
flights took off from Kolkata and rail traffic was
disrupted at several places.

Despite opposition from some unions, the strike hit
operations in the Kolkata, Haldia, Cochin, Gujarat,
Paradip, Tuticorin and Mumbai ports. Oil installations
in Tripura, Assam, West Bengal and Bihar were affected,
the CITU representatives claimed.

A large number of coal miners, employees of public
sector undertakings in Bangalore, Hyderabad and
Visakhapatnam, plantation workers, construction
labourers and those employed in the steel plants in
Salem, Durgapur and Burnpur also took part in the
strike.

The CITU, the All-India Trade Union Congress, the All-
India Central Council of Trade Unions, the Trade Union
Coordination Centre, the United Trade Union Centre and
the UTUC (LS) backed the strike. The All-India Bank
Employees Association, the All-India Insurance
Employees Association, the All-India State Government
Employees Federation and the Confederation of Central
Government Employees and Workers also supported it.
Over 15 lakh civilians employed in the defence
production sector and some employees of the Income Tax
department also extended their support.

"The strike was to protest against the fraud being
perpetrated by way of the feel good factor by the
Government. If India is really shining, the response
would not have been so massive," the AITUC general
secretary, Gurudas Dasgupta, said.

He charged the Congress with backing the NDA by not
coming out with its stand on the Centre’s economic
policies. "The struggle will continue, irrespective of
which ever party comes to power, and till there is a
total reversal of these policies," he said.

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