COVID-19 Lockdown: CITU Steps up to Ensure Ration, PPE and Financial Assistance | NewsClick
Thursday, May 21, 2020
Since after a nationwide lockdown was imposed by the prime minister on March 24 in order to curb the spread of COVID-19, migrant workers and daily wagers who were caught off guard have suffered without work and earnings. While many organisations in their limited capacity have been working to help the vulnerable sections of the society, Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has stepped up and has been involved in relief work across the country.
Super Cyclone Amphan wreaked havoc in six districts of southern West Bengal on Wednesday night, leaving behind shattered homes, uprooted trees and a collapse of the communication network in the state. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that 72 people have lost their lives as a result of the storm, said to be the strongest cyclone in the state for decades. In a bulletin, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said that as of 5 p.m. on Thursday, Amphan had moved north-northeastwards and would weaken into a deep depression over the next three hours. North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas and Nadia were the worst affected districts with the complete destruction of crops like paddy, groundnut and vegetables in the region. Howrah, Hooghli and Medinipur districts have suffered mild damage as well. Farmers have said that the saline water in farms will seriously compromise prospects of future cultivation.
The ongoing police probe into February riots that left Northeast Delhi smouldering reminds of the investigation processes in cases related to Bhima Koregaon and 2002 Gujarat violence, activists alleged, adding that similar to the later ones an attempt is underway to turn the narrative of Delhi riots on its head. In a joint virtual press conference on Thursday, eminent personalities including human rights activists and political figures accused the Delhi Police of “targeting” the ant- CAA protesters by “framing them under false charges”. This is when the FIRs against BJP leaders for inflammatory speeches have not been registered, even after almost three months of them allegedly inciting violence.
Newsclick Team 21 May 2020 A huge number of migrant laborers continue to make the long journey home on UP's Yamuna Expressway. They had no way to make ends meet and so began this journey. The government has not provided them any facilities. It's the residents of villages on their way who are helping them. Bhasha Singh talks to these migrants
Reduced factory emissions and those from power stations and even from the grounded airline industry have given people a taste of clean air. The lockdown has taken out the equivalent of almost 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in China and could curb global emissions from air travel by 11% to 19%, says a March 11, 2020 report by Bloomberg Intelligence. There is thus immense wishful thinking around renewable energy, as the International Energy Agency (IEA) position confirms.
In the villages of Punjab, the labour crisis caused by the Novel Coronavirus pandemic is now leading to growing incidents of nepotism and bias. The prominent farmers and landlords in the villages are taking advantage of the crisis to engineer splits between social groups and communities. So far, it is estimated that about 11 lakh labourers are likely to migrate out of Punjab to their respective states. About 6 lakh of them are from only one region, Ludhiana. This year, the usual inflow of seasonal temporary labourers into Punjab around Vaisakhi also did not take place due to the lockdown. This paddy season, the farmers of Punjab remained dependent on regional labourers.
Monday, May 18, 2020
Amey Tirodkar 18 May 2020 Small Players Hope for Revival Policy Representational Image. Akshay Patil is a young, first-generation, small-time entrepreneur from Aurangabad. He started his own tourism company four years back. He is in an agreement with an international conglomeration of smaller tourism companies. So, he sends tourists to other countries and arranges services in and around Aurangabad for the international travellers.
Newsclick Report 18 May 2020 Swiggy to Lay Off Over 1,000 Employees New Delhi: The axe of COVID-19 on jobs continues, especially in the informal sector and gig economy. Two days after online food delivery major Zomato announced that it was laying 13% of its staff, Swiggy announced on Monday that it was laying off 1,100 employees across cities. In an email to employees on Monday, Sriharsha Majety, co-founder and chief executive of Swiggy, said: “The core food delivery business has been severely impacted and will stay impacted over the short term, but is expected to start growing again after that...While we are very fortunate to have raised capital just before Covid hit and have sufficient runway today, it is incredibly important to prepare for worse scenarios in the macro environment and make sure we are protected."
Sunday, May 17, 2020
Within the serious constraints of the lockdown the working class in the country has made it clear they were not going to take these attacks lying down. In almost all the states wherever these changes were being carried out or being considered, in Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Punjab, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Bihar etc., protests were held in front of the labour commissioners’ officers, work places, or houses etc., by CITU independently or jointly along with other trade unions. On May 14, the central trade unions in the joint trade union platform discussed online about the future course of action to resist these measures. The secretariat meeting of CITU scheduled to be held online on May 15 will finalise its campaign and struggle programmes on the basis of the call of its 16th conference ‘to defy and resist’ anti-worker policies of the government.
In addition there is no empirical evidence that prohibiting labour laws or reducing wages would lead to economic growth. In Rajasthan, while the labour law amendments of the former BJP government were hailed by the corporates, what followed was fall in wages, increase in unemployment and decline in the state GDP. The Economic Survey of 2018-19 stressed that a high minimum wage does not impact employment generation. Besides, it is not only the trade unions, even eminent legal experts point out that ‘to say our labour laws are strictly implemented is a myth and thus to infer that their implementation is the primary cause for losses in productivity would be very erroneous’.
However, this argument that foreign companies would relocate themselves from China to India is totally misplaced. Even Indian firms are not investing in the country, particularly during the last few years. The major reason is the deteriorating purchasing power of the people and the inability to sell the manufactured products. Further suppressing demand through these measures will only worsen the disease.
Commending the UP, MP and Gujarat government’s initiatives as ‘one of the boldest and bravest initiatives since reforms in 1991’, Amitabh Kant, CEO of NITI Aayog recommended further reforms in other sectors as well. ‘It’s now or never; states are driving bold reforms; we will never get this opportunity; seize it’, he egged on the corporates.
This atrocious annulment of labour laws, meant to push workers into slavery is being done ostensibly in the name of attracting investment and supported by some in the name of weaning foreign firms from China. In the context of the corona pandemic, ‘China has become unpopular and many companies would exit from China. India should take this as a big opportunity, attract these firms and replace China as the ‘factory of the world’ – so goes the argument.
It is in such conditions that the employers and the governments serving them are trying to push workers into conditions of slavery. The employers don’t want to pay them wages; but they also won’t allow them to go back to their native places either. They want the workers to be available, homeless, starving but ready to work with low wages and without any legal protection whenever the establishments are open. But, that is what capitalism is. In their rush for profits, capitalists trample underfoot workers, human beings, nature, anybody and anything; no feelings of justice, humanity or morality here.
These demands and the response of the governments are nothing short of cruel. The corona pandemic has further increased the distress of the working class whose situation was already worsening due to the economic crisis. The workers are now facing unprecedented deprivations. ILO has estimated that half the workers globally would lose their jobs; in India around 40 crores workers are estimated to be pushed into poverty. The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) has reported that 120 million Indians have lost their jobs. Unemployment rate has risen to around 27 per cent. Crores of migrant and other workers who have lost their jobs suddenly find themselves homeless and hungry; lakhs of migrant workers have been walking hundreds of kilometres to their homes, hundreds succumbed to exhaustion and accidents on their way.
These attacks on the hard won rights of the working class, its display of authoritarianism are part of the attacks on the basic democratic and human rights of the toiling people by the desperate capital in crisis. These must be defeated and reversed through united struggles, not only of the working class but by the entire toiling masses.
That the government is acting as per the demands, rather dictates of the employers is very clear. Representatives of 12 employers’ associations and industries including Council of Indian Employers, FICCI, ASSOCHAM and PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry have demanded government of India to suspend labour laws for the next two to three years and to increase working hours to 12 per day. The Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry demanded that trade unions be prohibited for at least one year. They complained that minimum wages were too high and bringing them down was nearly impossible; and they reiterated their long time demand for freedom to hire and fire.
It is to be noted that all these are in total violation of the ILO conventions to which India is a signatory. The first convention that ILO, which India had signed, stipulates eight hours of work in a day and 48 hours of work in a week. India is also a signatory to the Tripartite Consultation International Labour Standards Convention, 1976, which requires it to consult stakeholders – employers and workers’ bodies – before taking any policy decision. But the state governments did not engage with trade unions, thus violating the Tripartite Consultation Convention C144. This is not the first time that the BJP government led by Modi is ignoring tripartism. CITU had to raise this with the ILO, during the first tenure of the Modi government.
On May 9, the Congress government in Punjab withdrew its own notification issued on May 1, increasing DA to industrial workers, which would have increased the minimum wages of workers by over Rs 350 from March 1. It is highly significant that in this mad rush to amend labour laws to satisfy the employers, it was only the LDF government in Kerala, where the state labour minister has categorically asserted that the state was not going to amend the labour laws in favour of the employers.
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