Industrial Strike and Bharat Bandh on 9^th September 1993

The call for Bharat Bandh and Industrial Strike called by the central trade unions on 09-09-1993 against the anti-worker, anti-people neo-liberal policies being pursued by the Government, was well participated all over India and was a great success. E.III (N) union fully participated in the strike.

Proposal for One Day Strike in November 1993.

The Government and the DOT was moving in the direction of bifurcating the telecom services in order to fragment and privatise it. E.III  and T.III Unions took the initiative and campaigned the necessity of fighting the ill-motivated moves of the government. The following announcement by the Chairman, Telecom Commission, N.Vittal, in a seminar pointed to the direction the government was taking:

“The Telecom sector is poised for revolutionary changes that would facilitate the entry of indigenous and multi-national companies in this sector”. Vittal also stated that DOT has decided to do away with the tendering process to grant licenses to provide Value Added Services.

Press reports indicated that in Tumkur, Bangalore (Karnataka), Tirupur, Tutucorin(T.Nadu), Ghaziabad (UP) etc. the MNCs have been invited to open new services. For this purpose, DOT has prepared two plans viz. “Build, Lease and Transfer”(BLT) and “Build, Operate and Transfer”(BOT). The name itself indicated privatization. The entire telecom workers were angry at these unexpected developments.

The assurance of N.Vittal, Chairman, Telecom Commission, that the interests of the 4.7 lakhs of telecom workers would be fully protected did not satisfy anybody. There were strong protests from workers. The proposed re-organisation of DOT was nothing short of first step towards privatization. In the meetings of the three Federations held shortly afterwards, our unions insisted for immediate protest actions to counter the privatization move.

Accordingly, the three Federations and the Unions met and decided to organize a strike in the last week of November 1993 to focus people’s attention on the policy of destabilization of telecom services in the name of liberalization and de-regulation. The demands of the strike were decided as follows:

1. No duality / multiplicity in telecom Services
2. Complete upgrading of skills and education of work force to change the work culture
3. Reduce working hours as recommended by the ILO to absorb surplus staff
4. End corruption at all levels.
5. Provide full information to unions and hold meaningful consultations
6. Settle all the aspects with workers’ organizations.

All the unions and Associations started full preparations for the strike.

A fatal accident

In the course of a tour programme conducted by the employees of Calcutta Telephones District, a fatal accident took place on 3^rd November 1993 near Mandi in Himachal Pradesh, when the private vehicle with the employees was coming from Manali. Five employees named below died and twelve received serious injuries:

1. Sadhok (JTO) 2. H.G.Saha (TSO) 3. Ashis Ghosh (TSO) 4. Mrs. M.Basukar (TSO) and 5. Dilip Das (Canteen employee).

The unions and the administration took immediate steps to bring the bodies, to give treatment to the injured and intimating the relatives etc. The employees of Mandi Telephone Exchange gave all help. O.P.Gupta and Moni Bose went to Mandi on 5^th November and arranged necessary things and consoled the comrades in distress.

Industrial Relations Bill opposed – Dharna on 7^th December 1993

The Central government was moving fast to implement its neo-liberal policies which are anti-worker and anti-people. The Sponsoring Committee of Indian Trade Unions, the co-ordination committee of the Central trade unions, called upon the workers to organize massive dharnas on 7^th December 1993 in protest against the proposed Industrial Relations Bill which sought to introduce exit policy as dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and imposing several curbs on trade union rights of the workers to please the MNCs.  The Sponsoring Committee also proposed to organize an all India convention on industrial sickness in public and private sectors so that a country wide movement can be  unleashed to save the sick units.

The dharna was effectively organized by the telecom workers in all the places as directed by CHQ..

Solidarity with Postal Employees’ Indefinite Strike

The Postal employees went on indefinite strike from 7^th December 1933 on their urgent and pressing demands, which was a complete success. The strike was withdrawn after agreement reached on 10^th December 1933. Many important demands were agreed to by the Postal authorities. It was a great success.  E.III Union gave full support and solidarity to the struggling Postal employees. (To be continued)