Central trade unions call for 1-day all-India strike on Sep 2

Eleven central trade unions, including BJP-backed BMS, today called for a one-day nation- wide general strike on September 2 to protest against government's unilateral labour reforms.
The strike call coincides with NDA government completing one-year in office.
"All-India general strike on September 2, 2015. The national convention calls upon the trade unions and working people irrespective of affiliations to unite and make the country-wide general strike a massive success," said a declaration at national convention of workers, under the aegis of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS).
The convention had participants from INTUC, AITUC, HMS, CITU, AIUTUC, TUCC, SEWA, AICCTU, UTUC and LPF.

"The government' aim in aggressively pushing through sweeping changes in labour laws is nothing but to push out overwhelming majority of workers out of the coverage of all labour laws and to drastically curb the trade union rights," the declaration said.
Expressing deep concerns over government's "anti-worker, anti-people and pro-corporate actions", it said, the actions of the present government is in pursuance to its policy of globalisation.

"During this period the government has been over-busy in amending all labour laws to empower employers with unfettered rights to 'hire and fire' and stripping the workers and trade unions of all their rights and benefits besides aggressively pushing through almost unlimited FDI in strategic sectors like railways, defence and financial sector," it said.

Unions have been opposing certain proposed labour law amendments which allows hire and fire, makes it tougher to make labour unions and diluting existing social security net available to the workers at different fora.
Under the proposed Industrial Relations Code Bill 2015, the employers with up to 300 workers would not require government permission for retrenchment, lay off and closure.
The government has formed an inter-ministerial panel to hold "threadbare discussions" with representatives of unions on their 10-point charter of demands and other issues raised for recommending measures to address those issues.