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| Slowdown reopens window for trade unions to regain lost relevance | |
| BS Reporter / New Delhi December 1, 2008, 1:25 IST | |
 The economic slowdown may have sent shock waves in the stock and job markets, but it has given a new purpose to the country’s trade unions. There is a new spring in their step and their leaders, mothballed not so long ago into oblivion, all of a sudden find themselves in demand from all quarters.
“In the past few weeks, we have met top leaders of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in New Delhi on behalf of the employers. The employers wanted us to appeal to the government on their behalf for financial assistance and easy loans to bail them out of this current crisis,” Indian National Trade Union Congress President Sanjeeva Reddy told Business Standard.
Reddy, the president of the Congress’ trade union arm and a veteran leader of the country’s trade union movement, said that he finds this new role “historically interesting”. “These employers or factory owners in the textile and information technology sector vehemently opposed formation of trade unions in their sectors earlier. For a long time, we couldn’t bring textile workers under the umbrella of the unions,” Reddy said. “Now, the same employers from Hyderabad, Bangalore and Tamil Nadu seek our help to fight their case. But we are ready to help them because if the industry die, how will the workers survive.”
Reddy has met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Union Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes after the economic slowdown hit the Indian shores.
The photos of agitating Jet Airways employees holding placards of Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s trade union, the Centre for Indian Trade Unions, were not just the first major pictures of the meltdown’s impact on the Indian corporate sector, but also a significant one in the recent history of Left trade unionism. For, the Left has been frequently sighted supporting the airport workers in their protests against privatisation of airports but they were never seen (or required) to show solidarity with white-collared, high salaried staff of India Inc. The global meltdown has even breached that class barrier for the Left.
When the 1,900 Jet Airways employees were handed over pink slips, they wasted no time to seek refuge in local political parties and Leftist trade unions in their respective cities to get back their jobs. While the airline’s bosses sought cuts in jet fuel prices from the government to sustain business and the employees, the Left took a unique stand: The government should not cut jet fuel price and the bleeding airlines can’t cut jobs as well.
All India Trade Union Congress General Secretary Gurudas Dasgupta admitted that the meltdown and even terrorism has thrown “new challenges” to the trade unions. “Meltdown and wrong economic policies of the government have led to a critical point now. Retrenchments, wage cuts, reduction in working hours are happening in a big way like never before, mainly in export-oriented business establishments. After the recent terror attack in Mumbai, the tourism sector and its workers will also suffer.”
Dasgupta has instructed his local trade union leaders to launch “counter-offensives” and “react” whenever workers suffer due to meltdown or terror attacks. “The workers also have an important role to play in keeping the nation united and strong. We have to play that role now,” said Dasgupta.
In their own admission, in the last 10 years of the National Democratic Alliance and UPA rule, most of their demands had “fallen to deaf ears of the government”. New threats have renewed opportunities now for the trade unions to regain lost relevance.
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