Countrywide General Strike on 21 May
The “Workers’ March to Parliament” held
in New Delhi on 26 February 2003 resolved to organize an all General Strike
on May 21, 2003 against the Government of India’s disastrous anti-people,
anti-worker and anti-national policies.
This resolution was endorsed by the National Consultation meeting on 12 March
which also formulated the eight-point demand charter:
1. Halt to privatization of profit-making and potentially viable public sector
undertakings; 2. No change in the labour laws in favour of the employees and
against the interests of the workers; 3. Immediate enactment of comprehensive
legislation for agricultural workers; 4. No to policies leading to severe aggravation
of joblessness and unemployment; 5. Widen comprehensive social security scheme
for all, including workers in unorganized sector; 6. Restoration of quantitative
restriction on imports;
7. Amendment of the Payment of Bonus Act by removing all ceilings; and 8. Restoration
of 12% interest on PF deposits.
The Meeting also came out with an appeal to the workers. It was signed by Swapan
Mukherjee of AICCTU, Gurudas Dasgupta of AITUC, MK Pandhe of CITU, RA Mittal
of HMS, SC Gaur of TUCC, Abani Roy of UTUC and Ashutosh Bannerjee of UTUC-LS.
The Oil Sector Strike
In protest against privatisation of profit-making oil sector
companies unions, all 26 unions of HPCL, BPCL & Kochi Refineries Limited
(KRL) were on strike from 25 to 27 March, 2003.
The last day of the 3-day strike was marked huge demonstations of the striking
workers at the major centers – Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Kochi etc. Around
5,000 workers from the refineries and marketing set up of HPCL and BPCL participated
in the massive demonstrations at the refinery gate in Mumbai. In the southern
region the two main centres, viz., Kochi and Visakhapatnam witnessed spectacular
strike. In Kerala, the retail outlets of both BPCL and HPCL went dry. In the
entire eastern region, with base at Kolkata, the strike was a huge success.
The CITU-affiliated Indian Oil Shramik Union went on a day’s strike throughout
the entire eastern region comprising states of West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Orissa,
and the north-eastern States in support of BPCL, HPCL and KRL workers.
In Delhi, workers from all the offices, depots and installations of the BPCL
and HPCL participated in a big demonstration held at Jantar Mantar. Apart from
Basudev Acharya and Chandrakala Pandey (both CPI MPs), Y D Sharma, Vice President
of AITUC, Swadesh Dev Roy, Secretary, CITU, Dr. Ishwar Singh, General Secretary
of the independent Union of HPCL, Northern Region and others addressed the demonstrators.
The 3-day strike was jointly called by 26 trade unions functioning in BPCL,
HPCL & KRL and the entire marketing network of the companies throughout
the country under the banner of “National United Forum Against Privatisation
of Oil PSUs” demanding reversal of Central Govt. decision to privatise
HPCL & BPCL. The unions participated in the strike included those affiliated
to AITUC, CITU, a section of INTUC, Maharashtra General Kamgar Union (of Late
Dr. Datta Samant), Trade Unions of Shiva Sena and many affiliated unions as
well.
The strike was a spectacular success, particularly in the BPCL Refinery at Mumbai,
HPCL Refineries at Mumbai and Visakhapatnam and KRL refinery at Kochi, in the
four regional marketing networks based in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai
and the corporate headquarters of both oil PSUs in Mumbai. One of the notable
features of the strike is that nefarious designs of the management to intimidate
the striking workers by measures like obtaining ex-parte court orders prohibiting
strike, issuing notices of alleged contempt pf court to the leaders, threatening
dismissal from service etc. totally failed to disrupt the strike.
More than expected success of the strike has strengthened the unity of the oil
sector workers and provided a big morale boost in the fight against privatization.
In the absence of any positive response from the Government even after 3-day
successful countrywide strike, the next phase of the trade union action to force
reversal of the decision of privatisation of HPCL and BPCL is obvious.