Category Archives: Uncategorized

Kerala – unprecedented rains, floods and lamdslides

16 Thursday Aug 2018

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Kerala is reeling under very heavy rains for the last two weeks or so. In many places landslide has taken place and many have been killed and houses collapsed. All the dams are full to the brink and there is no other way, but to open the shutters and  let out water, which again floods the rivers. about 30 people have died so far. About 12,000 houses have been collapsed. Tens of thousands are in the relief  camps. Water is every where – on the roads, houses and other places. The loss is estimated to more than Rs. 8000 crores.

The government and the people as  a whole have taken the responsibility of saving the people and taking them to the relief camps. Food, medicine, treatment are all made available. The state is in a condition of emergency to save the lives and save the situation.

Relief is coming from individuals, organisations, unions and from all sections. Kerala is bravely facing the situation. But much more funds are required.

Help Kerala in its time of disaster!

 

Significance of Supreme Court judgement on Casual Labour Regularisation

12 Sunday Aug 2018

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Whenever any case is filed by Casual labourers engaged after 2006 in CAT, the Govt is giving counter by quoting the 2006 judgment of Supreme Court in Umadevi’s case. CAT or High Court also reject their claim stating that after 2006 no regularization can be considered as per 2006 Supreme Court judgement in Umadevi’s case. Even in JCM (NC) Standing Committee Govt has repeated this stand. Now Supreme Court has clearly stated that 2006 judgement doesn’t mean that Govt is bound to regularise ONLY those irregularly appointed casual labourers up to 2006 only provided they complete 10 years service up to 2006 and can go on engaging casual labourers after 2006 as the question of regularization is not applicable to them and thus continue exploitation of them without regularization.

Court ruled that those appointed after 2006 should also be considered for regularization. Even if the appointment is made after 2006, those casual labourers can now approach the CAT for regularization quoting this judgement. This is the importance of this judgement.

Of course, this particular judgement will be implemented for Jhakhand State Govt casual laboureres only. But the above mentioned important observations and ruling of Supreme Court clarifying the 2006 Constitution Bench judgement of the same Court are beneficial to all casual labourers.

Similarly, the stand taken by the Govt that all appointments (engagements) of casual labourers made after 01-09-1993 are irregular and hence not eligible for regularization, will not also stand in the Court of Law after this judgement. In Umadevi’s case also Supreme Court has clearly ruled that those irregularly appointed casual labourers (even if appointed after 01-09-1993)are eligible for regularization, if they have completed 10 years of service. (Courtesy: Confederation website)

Telecom Trade Union Movement – A Saga of Struggles, Sacrifices and Achievements (6) – CHQ Starts functioning in right earnest

10 Friday Aug 2018

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(Continued from earlier post)

Functioning of CHQ
The new leadership of All India Telecom Employees Union Class III (E.III Union) started work in right earnest with V.A.N.Namboodiri, President and Moni Bose, General Secretary staying at Dada Ghosh Bhawan, head quarters of the union. The “Telecom” (monthly) and ” Correspondence” (Weekly) were issued in time with not only the issues of the telecom workers, but with articles on the issues of the working class in general to educate the workers. The editorial in the first issue after Bhopal Conference was about the October Revolution in Russia, which inspired an entire generation of workers all over the world. Coms. Atma Ram and Raghubir Singh, employees of the union continued, but it was felt that they could be more helpful.

In the morning, Moni and Namboodiri will work at HQ and in the after-noon, they will go to Sanchar Bhawan, HQ of DOT to discuss the problems of the workers. All the pending issues were being taken up in a systematic way. The condition of the old car handed over by O.P.Gupta, former General Secretary, was pitiful as almost every day, it will have some break down on the way. Hence the car was in the garage only. We used to go to Sanchar Bhawan, either in bus or auto. The Metro Service has not started and it was very difficult to get auto and going by bus with more than double the passengers was almost an impossible task. However, there was no other way.

During these journeys to DOT and discussions, Moni was firm that Namboodiri should also accompany him. After the work at Sanchar Bhawan, both will go to the residence of Com. Neelotpal Basu, M.P., son-in-law of Moni Bose, in V.P.House and take tea/tiffin or sometimes dinner itself. His daughter, Susmitha Bose was employed in Delhi. It will always be 09.00 to 10.00 PM by the time we reaches back to DGB, somehow managing to get an auto or bus.

Within days, Com. Jyotsna Bose, wife of Moni Bose, also came to Delhi from Calcutta. She was a Telephone operator and was a leader of the union and had retired by that time. She used to prepare very tasty food for both of us.

I stayed in a room, which had no ventilation at all, but there was no other alternative. Though I have stayed at CHQ two- three times for one or two months earlier as Assistant General Secretary of the union, it was only after the Bhopal AIC that I started staying at CHQ continuously. When I was AGS, O.P.Gupta, GS never asked me to come to CHQ. I used to come on my own. But when I came, he entrusted me a lot of work and worked in-cordination. Those visits and stay at CHQ helped at present in attending to the day to day work. (To be continued)

New pay scales proposed by staff side in BSNL.

09 Thursday Aug 2018

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The new pay scales w.e.f. 01-01-2017 demanded by the staff side BSNL JCM have been posted in BSNLEU website (bsnleu.in).

Now it is the responsibility of the BSNL management to continue the discussion without delay and finalise the agreement at the earliest.

Editors’ Guild protests against government and political interference

09 Thursday Aug 2018

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The cat is out of the bag. The government interference in the publication of news and comments in the press/media is exposed.

It is none other than the Editors Guild who have accused the government and the political establishments of pressurising the journals not to publish matters against the government. The Guild stated: ” The Editors’ Guild of India condemns the manner in which the right to practice free and independent journalism is seen to be undermined by a combination of forces – some media owners’ inability to withstand political covert and overt pressures from the political establishment and frequent instances of blocking or interference in the transmission of television content that is seen to be critical of the government.”

The central government and BJP should stop this attack on the newspapers and the media.

Telecom Trade Union Movement – A Saga of Struggles, Sacrifices and Achievements (4) – To Delhi

26 Thursday Jul 2018

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To Delhi

OPG supporters had already started conspiracies how to torpedo the election of the All India Conference and create problems in the organisation. As part of it, they raised the strange demand that the polled ballots and other records should be handed over to the outgoing office-bearers, since Com. Moni Bose is yet to take charge as the General Secretary. Coms. N.T.Sajwani and R.K.Kohli led the group and pressurised the election officers for the same. Well knowing that this was intended to manipulate the votes and results later, the Asst. Presiding Officer Com. J.Renganathan firmly refused to consider the unjustified request.
Workers have not forgotten, how Com. OPG, General Secretary, manipulated the records after the Gauhati All India Conference in 1969, by declaring after reaching Delhi, that election of Com. K.G.Bose as Federal Councillor, is nullified. The plan now was to repeat the same and nullify the Bhopal elections.
(Com.J.Renganathan, Asst. Presiding Officer, who took the correct and firm decision, was the Vice-President of the All India Union, who has resigned the post protesting against the revisionist line of the General Secretary, along with Moni Bose and V.A.N.Namboodiri, who were respectively, Vice-President and Asst. General Secretary of the union, just before the All India Conference. He entered the services in 1959 in Ramnad Telephone Exchange as Telephone Mechanic and became a leader of the union within a short time. His close connection with leaders like Com. A.Pirmanathan, Pasupati, Gurumurthy and others helped him to develop as a militant leader. He was suspended and transferred to Coimbatore for leading the 1968 historic one day token strike of the Central government employees. He reached back to Madras in 1970. In 1989, he became the Circle Secretary of Madras Telephone District Circle after defeating the then circle secretary and a close associate of OPG, Com. B.Srinivasa Rao. JR, as he was popularly called, was already elected as the Asst. General Secretary in the Madras All India Conference. He voluntarily retired from service in 1993 with commitment to social service. He worked as Editor of the labour magazine “ Uzhaikkum Vargam” for a number of years .
During my last visit to Chennai, I went to his house and met him and wife and had discussion about the various aspects of the present situation of BSNL. He was a comrade who stood firm during his entire service in telecom for the correct policies and is one of my close associate for decades).
I, as the newly elected President, intervened and took hold of the entire documents, ballots etc. which was handed over to me by the Com. JR, Asst. Presiding Officer and kept it in a safe place. Com. Ramachandran, Secretary of ITEF, M.P., Com. S.C.Shrivastava, Circle Secretary T.III Union, M.P.Circle and others gave full support and assistance in the matter.
Com. Moni Bose and I stayed at Bhopal for two days arranging everything for moving to Delhi. Comrades who came along with me including my wife returned to Calicut. I had no other way but to go to Delhi and stay some time there, according to the promise I had given to Com. Moni Bose. The situation was serious since any move from OPG group had to be countered.
What will be the situation in Delhi? We were very apprehensive. Whether we will be allowed to function in Dada Ghosh Bhawan, CHQ of the union? Where we will stay? How to effectively strengthen the organisation? What will be the reaction of the DOT? A lot of questions were in our mind.
Any way, we prepared for our Delhi journey along with the ballot papers and election materials etc. No prior information was given to anybody, as we expected some protest demonstration etc. since the OPG group was very angry, which we have seen at Bhopal after the elections.
But after considering everything we firmly decided that we will face everything calmly and courageously and started for Delhi by train. All options were discussed. Our final option was that after getting down, we will directly go to Dada Ghosh Bhawan, the citadel of E.III Union. We will function from there. (To be continued)

BSNL Workers start Hunger Strike – Call by AUAB

24 Tuesday Jul 2018

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As per the call of the All Unions and Associations of BSNL (AUAB), thousands of workers all over India participated in the Hunger Strike programme, demanding Wage revision, Pension revision, 30% Pensionary benefits to those recruited in BSNL and allotment of 4G Spectrum to BSNL. The hunger strike will continue for two more days.

The DOT and the government should take immediate action.

Protest demonstration by Left Parties in Delhi

24 Tuesday Jul 2018

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The left parties organised a big dharna in Delhi protesting against the violence raj in W.Bengal by the Trinamul and in Tripura by the RSS/BJP killing workers and leaders of Left parties, demolishing offices attacking the workers etc. Among the leaders, who addressed the protest march were CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, CPI general secretary Sudhakar Reddy, Kerala Chief Minister and CPI(M) polit bureau member Pinarayi Vijayan, former Tripura Chief Minister and CPI(M) polit bureau member Manik Sarkar, Forward Block general secretary Debabrata Biswas, CPI(ML) general secretay Dipankar Bhattacharya, RSP central committee member Ajoy Gosh, CPI(M) polit bureau member Prakash Karat and CPI national secretary D Raja.

Telecom Trade Union Movement – A Saga of Struggles, Sacrifices and Achievements (4) Bhopal All India Conference, Start of A New Era. (contd)

23 Monday Jul 2018

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Bhopal Conference – Start of a New Era

The Elections

For conducting the elections, Com.Homi Daji, President, was elected as Presiding Officer and Com. J.Renganathan as Asst. Presiding Officer. Both sides nominated  their election agents also. The method of conduct of elections as proposed by the General  Secretary was accepted. It was not easy to conduct an election where about three thousand delegates are there  with a large number of candidates  including 13 office-bearers and 34 Federal Councillors from both sides. It was almost an impossible task to conduct the same in the limited time through secret ballot, which we insisted, since there can be a lot of manipulations otherwise. There was no computer or such arrangements; everything had to be typed and photostatted. It took many valuable hours. Two ballot papers were made  ready – one for office bearers and another for Federal Councillors. Federal Councillor is elected from each of the affiliated unions in NFTE on the basis of membership, who will participate in the Federal Council, which will elect the office bearers of the Federation, NFTE.

The Election Campaign

The time was effectively used by both sides for election campaign. Processions with banners and flags in the vast conference pandal, speeches, slogan raising, meeting individual delegates – all kinds of propaganda were effectively organised. Since we had planned earlier, it was easy for us to arrange the same.

While I, along with other leaders and delegates were doing the propaganda work, Com. Moni Bose was sitting inside the pandal with a few comrades discussing things. He called me and  secretly asked me whether we will win. I told him that there is every chance for us to win.  Then he told me that ‘in that case I will have to shift to New Delhi. You  must also come. It will be difficult to face them alone’. Without thinking for a moment, I told him that we are sure to win and that we can work together at Delhi. This put an end to his anxiety. There was no other way for me but to give the assurance, though I was not  sure of victory.

The method for election was that each Circle Secretary will be  the Election Officer for  that Circle. There will be agents from both the sides. The poling booth for circles were arranged in various parts of the pandal. There were only ten circle secretaries who were supporting us and the other 22 or so other circle Secretaries belonged to OPG side. So there was every chance for manipulation of votes, and that is what happened also. Despite protests from the agent of Com. Moni Bose group, many circle secretaries compelled their delegates to vote openly so that they will not vote to our candidates. There were also some circle secretaries, who meticulously conducted the polling. The situation of Bihar Circle was not only open voting, but the Circle Secretary, after giving the ballots to the delegates, read the name of the candidates of OPG group and asked them to tick that and after checking by himself  put in the ballot box. The result was that not a single vote for any candidate from Moni Bose Group was received in Bihar. The entire votes went to OPG side. Although all these manipulations were brought to the notice of the Presiding Officer,  he delayed visiting the polling booths. By the time he visited, polling was over and nothing could be done.  In such a situation, we were doubtful about the results of the election.

Results announced – Victory for Moni Bose panel

The counting started in the midnight and continued till morning. First, the counting was done for the election of office-bearers.  The Presiding Officer, The Assistant Presiding Officer and the two agents finalised the tedious job. It was a tense movement and complete silence when the  President rose to announce  the results. When he started announcing the results of circles, one after another, there was complete surprise and shock. For the President onward to all the office-bearers in the Moni Bose group, a large number of votes were being received from many circles. It was a neck to neck fight.

At this stage, there was an effort from the side of Com.O.P.Gupta, to compel the presiding Officer to stop the announcement  of  the results. But a well known trade union leader like Com. Homi Daji, could not agree to such a miscarriage of justice.

At last the total votes for each candidates were announced after adding the votes of all circles.  The following Office-bearers from Moni Bose group were declared elected:

V.A.N.Namboodiri ,(Kerala ) (President)  Smt. A.K.Saramma (Madras), Smt. Anima Banerjee (Calcutta), K.D.M.Tripathi (U.P)(Vice-Presidents), Moni Bose (W.Bengal) (General Secretary), M.N.Reddy (A.P.), S.R.Nayak (M.P) (Asst. General Secretaries), Begraj Kheri (UP) (Treasurer), P.S.Sangwan (Haryana)(Asst. Treasurer)

The following were four office-bearers elected from OPG group, but with very less margin:

N.T.Sajwani (M.P.), N.Y.Lokhande (Bombay) (Vice-Presidents), R.K.Kohli (Delhi), S.Jagannathan (T.Nadu) (Asst. General Secretaries).

The maximum vote was received by Smt. A.K.Saramma, Vice-President. She was a senior leader of the Madras Telephones. She got many votes from the North also confusing her name with ‘Sharma’. Further, there were only 4 candidates from OPG side to the posts of 5 Vice-Presidents.

O.P.Gupta, General Secretary of the union for long 37 years since formation of NFPTE and E.III Union in 1954, lost for the first time. In fact, there was not any  contest  in AICs, except once or twice, that too not on a panel basis. He was considered undefeatable. The delegates decided otherwise.

After conveying his Greetings and Best Wishes, the President left the place stating that he had some urgent meetings to attend. He entrusted Asst. Presiding Officer J.Renganathan and OPG nominee Y.L.Ramdas to count the votes for the election for the Federal Councillors. After congratulating and extending full co-operation to the newly elected office-bearers, O.P.Gupta also left the place stating that he has to reach Delhi urgently. Probably it was much embarrassment for him to meet the workers after his decisive defeat in the elections.

The counting  for the Federal Councillors were conducted next. It also took a long time. The following were elected: This included many from both sides, as it was felt at the time of nomination itself that circle secretaries of major circles need not be contested. Many names were in both the lists.

Comrades R.Gunasekhar, S.D.Borkar, R.L.Mondal, Gour Saha, Swadeshi Das, A.K.Bhattacharjee, Parithosh Bose, Sivdas Banerjee, J.Renganathan, P.Abhimanyu, P.V.Chandrasekharan, S.N.Sarma, P.Ramasamy, P.Asoka Babu, N.T.Sajwani, S.B.Srinivasan, R.S.Yadav, M.Madhusudana Rao, R.K.Thotre, M.P.Dalwadi, M.N.Khokhani, N.Chakravarti, S.Siddiqui, B.B.Rawat, S.G.Pawar, B.P.Sharma, L.N.Mishra, K.L.Sharma, D.V.Lavadia, M.B.Vichare, Triveni Rai, Sriram Swaran Kar, J.Sampath Rao and J.C.Pande.

The new office-bearers and Federal Councillors were greeted with slogans by the delegates. Many from the OPG group itself were happy that a change for the correct policy has come.

Thus a great change came in the leadership as well as the policy of the union. This was a historical victory for the progressive section in the union. The change was not only welcomed by the telecom workers, but many organisations of the central government employees unions as also P and T unions welcomed this change. This was treated as a victory for the correct policy over the revisionist line.

The newly elected office-bearers and Federal Councillors were given a grand welcome in the Bhopal Exchange premises. Coms. V.A.N.Namboodiri, President and Com. Moni Bose, General Secretary spoke and assured the workers that they will focus on the issues of the workers and will tread the correct line.

Thus ended the historical Bhopal Conference. (To be continued).