----- Original Message -----
From: Sanjay Singhvi
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2000 2:57 PM
Subject: [M-L L] Re: India's Electricity and Port Workers Strike
Comrades,
Unfortunately both these strikes have since been settled. The dock
workers (whose union is led by the "socialiats" or social-democrats)
strike was called off around 15th Jan. Actually there were no direct
demands concerned with privatisation in this strike. It was basically
for wage demands. The two issues inthis strike over which there was a
dead-lock were:
1. Whether the wage-agreement reached should be for a period of 5 years
or for 10 years; and
2. Whether the enhanced House Rent Allowance (HRA), City Compensatory
Allowance (CCA) etc. should be made applicable from 1st Jan. 2000 or
from 1st Jan. 1998.
As regards the first demand, before 1993, normally dock workers'
wage settlements were signed for 3 years at a time. In 1993, for the
first time, the settlement was for 5 years. Now, under WTO pressures to
maintain "stability", the government is pressing for a 10 year
settlement. Both the demands remained unresolved. The government has
promised to consider these demands at the Cabinet level and to give its
reply in three months.
The UP State Electricity Board (a government undertaking with the
monopoly for the generation, transmission and distribution of
electricity in the state of Uttar Pradesh, which translates as Northern
Territories) employs 87,000 workers who were all on strike for 13 days
till 25th Jan. The issue here was that the government had proposed to
trifurcate the board into three separate corporations, one dealing with
the generation of Hydel Power, one dealing with the generation of
Thermal Power and one dealing with the transmission and distribution of
electricity. The unions (under the leadership of the conventional
Khruschevite Communist parties) saw this as a precursor to privatisation
and hence the strike. The resolution of this strike was on the basis of
the assurance given by the government that no privatisation would take
place for one year, though the trifurcation would proceed immediately.
After one year, the government would review the situation and take steps
accordingly.
Both these strikes show that the workers in India are ready to put
up a fight against the WTO, IMF, WB combine and their policies of
privatisation, liberalisation etc. However, it seems to me that the
leadership is dithering and since it is in the hands of
social-democrats, is compromising.
I should have written about these strikes earlier and am grateful to
Bill for this post. In fact, January saw a plethora of huge strikes in
India. The state government workers in the state of Rajasthan are still
on strike since the last two months! The state government workers of the
state of Jammu & Kashmir also were on strike. Both these strikes, I
estimate, also involve around a 100,000 workers each. They are concerned
with the implementation of the 5th pay commission pay scales and in
opposotion to privatisation. However, I do not have more details on
these strikes since the press has been playing sown these actions (a
black-out?). I will post the relevant information as soon as I have it.
With fraternal greetings,
Sanjay
Bill Howard wrote:
>
> Communist Web
Tuesday 8th February 2000 9.30pm gmt
India's Electricity and Port Workers Strike
CALCUTTA, Every major port in India has been brought to a standstill as
more
than
100,000 dock and port workers went on strike across India following
breakdown of talks
between their trade unions and the BJP-led federal government in Delhi.
At the same time, the northern electricity grid that supplies power to
nearly half of the
country was switched off when electricity workers including members of the
officers'
association and the engineering staff struck work. Both strikes have
continued unabated
since January 18, and the power workers' strike would spill over to the
rest
of the country
following a call for a one-day all-India power strike on January 24. The
port strike was
always a threat to the Vajpayi government since the federal minister for
surface transport
boasted in public that the "decision to privatise the ports as per the
wishes of the World
Bank shall be carried out and the protestations of the `anti-national' TU
bodies shall
simply be ignored by the government."
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