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Strikes hit normal life across India
New Delhi | September 29, 2005 8:15:06 PM IST
 

Over a million public sector bank and airport employees stayed away from work across India Thursday to protest the government's free market reforms, badly affecting air services and banking and financial operations.

A daylong strike by some 20,000 workers of the state-run Airports Authority of India (AAI), which manages 124 airports in the country, badly affected domestic and international aviation services in Asia's third largest economy as left-backed trade unions agitated.

The AAI Employees Union claimed that the strike was a complete success with few airports managing to function normally.

"The strike is a complete success," Nitin Jadhav, joint secretary of the union, said in Mumbai.

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NEW DELHI, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- Thursday was a day of chaos in India as thousands of workers across the country observed one-day strike in protest against government's economic reforms.

    The nation-wide strike call was given by communists-backed trade unions and federations in the country. Interestingly, four of the major communist parties of India are lending outside support to the 16-month old Congress-led coalition government in New Delhi.

    Eastern Indian state of West Bengal, where communists are in ruling for the past 28 years was the worst hit region as no flightcould either take off or arrive at capital city Kolkata's Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose international airport, though an Indian Airlines flight from Delhi arrived at the airport at 10:15 a.m. (local time), news agency Indo-Asian News Service reported Thursday.

    Air passengers found themselves stranded in several places, schools were shut and financial services hit during the Thursday strike.

    A daylong strike by some 20,000 workers of the state-run Airports Authority of India (AAI), which manages 124 airports in the country, badly affected domestic and international aviation services in Asia's third largest economy as left-backed trade unions agitated.

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A day-long, national strike in India has disrupted air, rail and banking services across the country.

Left-wing trade unions were protesting at the government's economic reforms. It was the first national strike since the Congress party won power in 2004.

Private airlines cancelled flights as airport staff walked out in protest at plans to privatise airports.

Indian communist parties are key supporters of the ruling coalition, but they oppose major economic reforms.

Down with bank mergers! Down with the government!
Strikers in Mumbai

The BBC's Sanjeev Srivastava in Delhi says the government is in a tricky situation as it needs the support of the communists in the national parliament to remain in power.

But it also wants to press ahead with reforms to ensure that the Indian economy, now the fourth largest in Asia, continues to grow at a healthy rate.

Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said he thought the financial impact of the strike on the economy would be "marginal".

'Success'

Domestic flights were particularly badly hit, with thousands of travellers stranded.

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) said international flights operated normally. The government drafted in 3,000 air force personnel in an attempt to avert major disruption.

Unions say the strike affected services in most of India's 78 airports.

"The strike is a 100% success," MK Ghosal, general secretary of the Airports Authority of India Employees Union, told Reuters news agency.

Airports are particularly affected as many employees oppose government plans to sell 74% stakes in the Delhi and Mumbai hubs.

The eastern city of Calcutta, home to a 28-year-old Communist government, was worst hit by the strike.

The BBC's Subir Bhaumik in Calcutta says operations at the city airport ground to a halt and public transport, including the city's undeground railway, did not operate.

Cargo handling at Calcutta's port also stalled after workers there joined the strike.

Government and private offices, including info-tech companies, remained closed. Schools and colleges were also shut.

The privatisation of well-run government companies serves only the politicians and their cronies
A Prasad, Chennai, India

The strike also had a major impact in the southern state of Kerala, another left-wing stronghold.

In the capital, Delhi, riot police were deployed at airport terminals.

"The morning roster staff have all reported for duty," an airports spokesman said.

But reports said there were fewer passengers than normal.

The BBC's Monica Chadha in Mumbai says more than five million federal and state government employees in western Maharashtra state participated in the strike.

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Workers' stir hits Tata Motors
Our Corporate Bureau / Mumbai October 1, 2005
After nearly four decades, Tata Motors’ Jamshedpur plant witnessed a strike today with 6,000-odd workers staying away from work, demanding a profit-linked bonus.
 
The company declared a holiday today to compensate the workers’ demand for an extra holiday as Gandhi Jayanti ( October 2) this year is on a Sunday. A spokesperson for Tata Motors said the labour union demanded a change in the existing bonus payment structure.
 
“The company is keen on negotiations with the union. We are hopeful that the issue will be resolved soon,” he said.
 
According to him, the company has been paying the annual bonus — a combination of a percentage of monthly wage and a worker’s productivity— in line with the Bonus Act.
 
All workers of the company were eligible for bonus and the company’s bonus payment grew to be more than double over the last four years, he added.
 
The spokesman for the workers’ union said the workers would continue to protest if their demand for a profit-linked bonus was not met.

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UPA govt anti-workers, charges CPI
Bhopal, Oct 1: Accusing the UPA government at the Centre of diluting India's foreign policy of non-alignment and "almost adopting the BJP's path" with "anti-working class" policies, the CPI today warned that "friendship with the US will cause danger to the country".

"We oppose and protest against dilution of the non-aligned foreign policy. The vote against Iran (with US and EU on a resolution against its nuclear programme) at the International Atomic Energy Agency has tarnished India's image as a non-aligned country," CPI leader Gurdas Dasgupta told reporters here.

"The US was never a friend of India. Friendship with it will bring danger to the country," he said.

Dasgupta, here to attend a meeting of the All-India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) as its general secretary, said, "The Manmohan Singh government is almost following the path of the BJP. The anti-working class policies will not be allowed to continue."

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Pranab takes a dig at Left "double standards"
Kolkata | October 01, 2005 6:49:33 PM IST
 

Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee today said communists failed to expand their presence in India because of ''wrong'' political decisions and ''double standards''.

''The communists should do a little introspection on why they could not expand their presence in the country beyond West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura despite the communist movement for the last 87 years...even a young party like the BJP ruled the country for five years,'' Mr Mukherjee said.

''They have taken the wrong political decisions and adopted double standards ever since inception,'' he said speaking at the annual conference of INTUC backed Food and Drinks Workers' Federation here.

Lambasting the Left, which went ahead with a strike protesting the Centre's economic policy despite backing the central government, the Defence Minister said, ''A national party should think about the interests of the nation. On one hand they are privatising the Great Eastern Hotel and on the other they are opposing the stake sale in BHEL.

The party had failed to go beyond their combined seat strength of 63 in the 543 strong Parliament because of the wrong political decisions and double standards.'' Maintaining that the Congress government is not ''anti-labour'', he said both Congress and INTUC will continue to maintain an organic link.

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Four legs good, two legs better.

[ 02 October 2005: Message edited by: America is Behind ]

I could predict their names, but that would be wrong.

Edited to add: [superego]Be a good b317, and stick to facts/reports, silly blake. No personal attacks. Good b317. No squabble. Be a good a good boy. Leave personal dramas aside, they're a waste of energy. Don't eat yellow snow. Deal with behaviour not the person. Try not to hurt feelings.[/superego]

From Conflicted Commies:

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That doesn't mean, however, that India's communists have gone the way of comrades from Russia and China, tilting toward robber-baron capitalism. Just last Thursday the party's traditional allies in India's left-wing trade unions brought the country to a standstill with a daylong national strike that shut down railroads, airports and banks. In New Delhi, where the communists are critical partners in the coalition government, they have diluted free-market reforms and are hotly debating their proper role in a capitalist economy. The outcome of that debate is crucial: it could help determine whether India accelerates to China-style growth rates or stumbles yet again.

The Indian communists have more influence than all but one kindred party in a capitalist democracy, behind President Hugo Chavez's Movement for a Fifth Republic in Venezuela. (Third on the list: Portugal, where communists hold 12 of 230 seats in Parliament.) The CPM and two much smaller communist parties together control 60 of India's 545 parliamentary seats. Since the United Progressive Alliance led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Congress party is 51 seats short of a majority, it depends on communists to stay in power. The CPM has used that clout to block or temper policies from the sale of state-owned companies to the liberalization of labor laws in special economic zones.

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[ 02 October 2005: Message edited by: blake 3:17 ]

[ 02 October 2005: Message edited by: America is Behind ]

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quoted by blake 3:17: "The Indian communists have more influence than all but one kindred party in a capitalist democracy, behind President Hugo Chavez's Movement for a Fifth Republic in Venezuela."

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Communists don't measure their strength only by parliamentary seats. Lenin even called that approach "parliamentary cretinism" and mocked the shit out of it.

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CITU set to form India's first union for IT, BPO workers
Tuesday October 4 2005 00:00 IST

UNI

NEW DELHI: Left-affiliated central union CITU announced that it has taken the initiative to establish the country's first union in the IT and BPO sector to address the grievances of over five lakh workers, not governed by labour laws so far, and urged the UPA government to enact separate legislation for them.
''We have made attempts in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Haryana, knowing well that the task is onerous because the moment it workers try to establish any Union, they are thrown out of their jobs,'' CITU president M K Pandhe told UNI.
Stating that such unions existed in many parts of the world, the he said the help of other trade unions would also be sought for the cause.
''Workers in the IT and BPO sector work for 10 to 12 hours a day or night, which is not fair. No labour law applies to them. The moment they talk about forming a Union and the right to collective bargaining, the management victimises them and they are shown the door,'' Pandhe said.
Formal discussions to form the Union had taken place in Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai and Hyderabad, the CITU leader, also the CPM politburo president, said, adding that a small CITU union existed in Kolkata in the sector.

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Beyond Maruti, India govt sales unlikely this year
Tue Oct 4, 2005 5:32 PM IST

By Unni Krishnan

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India is unlikely to sell any shares in state-run firms in the financial year to March 2006 beyond its planned stake sale in car maker Maruti Udyog Ltd., a government official said on Tuesday.

The coalition government's privatisation agenda, aimed at raising money for ambitious schemes to reduce widespread poverty and unemployment, has repeatedly run into opposition from its communist allies.

"The political climate is not conducive. There is a positive slowdown in disinvestment of PSUs (public sector units). I think only Maruti share sale will happen this year," a top finance ministry official, who did not want to be identified, told reporters.

Maruti shares rose 1.9 percent to a new all-time closing high of 589.45 rupees in a firm stock market on Tuesday.

Last month, the government firmed up plans to raise 9 to 10 billion rupees by selling an 8 percent stake in New Delhi-based Maruti, India's largest car maker, to state-run domestic financial institutions and banks.

The government owns 18.28 percent in Maruti, which competes with Hyundai Motor Co., local firm Tata Motors Ltd. and the Indian units of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp.

Maruti, which controls half the car market in India, is also 54.2 percent owned by Japan's Suzuki Motor Co.The government had sold 25 percent of the firm through a hugely successful initial public offering in June 2003.

Even as the Maruti sale was likely to scrape through, the government had to put on hold plans to sell 10 percent of Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd., India's top power equipment maker.

Apart from the communists, the government's privatisation plans also face opposition from powerful labour unions who fear large scale job losses.

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