Unions Oppose Remodelling Of Consumer Price Index

The labour ministry has suffered a setback in its efforts to change the base year for the consumer price index after carrying out an income and expenditure survey of working-class families as all the five major central trade unions have decided to oppose the index preparation exercise.

The central unions which have decided to boycott the survey are the Indian National Trade Union Congress, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, Hind Mazdoor Sabha, the All-India Trade Union Congress (Aituc), and the Centre for Indian Trade Unions (Citu).

The introduction of a new series is likely to artificially depress the index and affect wages. We have been opposed to the 1981-82 series of index. In all industry-level wage negotiations, we use 1960-61 as the base year because the government has tried to suppress the index through the later series, said Tapas Sen, a Citu leader.

 

The CPI is an important component of the wage revision exercise which is due in all Central public sector undertakings. The refusal of unions to cooperate with the survey could result in the index throwing up a distorted picture of income and expenditure patterns in the country.

We have said we will not cooperate with the current survey unless the maladies in the 1981-82 series are rectified. These maladies occurred during collection of price data and compilation of index. The government also changed the weightage given to different commodities to suppress the index, said Sen.

The International Labour Organisation has been emphasising the need to consult trade unions to gain the confidence of workers in the index compilation exercise. The Rath Committee set up by the government had recommended that trade unions should be consulted at every stage of the index preparation process.

But the Labour Bureau under the ministry unilaterally set out to collect price data and even set up new data collection centres without consulting trade unions, Citu leaders alleged. At a later stage, when the Bureau sought the trade unions cooperation, all the central unions refused to cooperate.

In its communication to central unions, the Labour Bureau has sought information on concentration of working class population, markets catering to their needs, etc at each of the 78 selected data collection centres in India.

The bureau is using government officials and research organisations for compiling statistics. We have received complaints from local unions about faulty data collection and violation of the directive given in the monograph on consumer price index which is based on ILO norms. This is a serious matter as the index might give a distorted picture, said K L Mahendra of Aituc.

The unions have also taken up the matter with labour minister M P Veerendra Kumar. However, trade union sources said the ministry has not been taking concrete action on the issue after the dissolution of the Lok Sabha which reduced the present government to caretaker status.