SHILLONG: The city-based Meghalaya Joint Council of Trade Unions and Associations (MJCTU&A), Thma U Rangli Juki (TUR) and its associated organisations will join the nationwide workers’ strike on Friday in protest against the Centre’s anti-people policies and authoritarian attitude.
Other unions joining the protest are the Nazareth Hospital Workers’ Union (NHWU) and the Meghalaya and Greater Shillong Progressive Hawkers and Street Vendors Association (MGSPHSVA).
MJCTU&A will hold the workers’ rally at Parking Lot, opposite the CTO building on Vivekananda Road at 11.30am on Friday.
In a press communiqué, TUR said the Centre failed to control spiralling prices of essential commodities and could not generate employment or increase minimum wage, “yet it is moving fast towards demolishing the existing labour laws, thereby empowering employers with unfettered rights to hire and fire”.
“The anti-worker and authoritarian attitude of the government is also nakedly reflected in their refusal to implement rights such as living wages,” the TUR release stated.
In Meghalaya, TUR has led the way for the working class struggle and it believes that cooperation and unity among the working class is the only way to take back power from the ruling elites to ensure a truly democratic and egalitarian society. As part of the solidarity programme, TUR, NHWU, and MGSPHSVA have called upon all workers in the State to participate in the march at 11am starting from AITUC office on Quinton Road in support of the trade unions’ 12-point charter of demands.
The 12-point charter of demands includes urgent measures for containing price rise through universalisation of the public distribution system and banning speculative trade in the commodities market and containing unemployment through concrete measures for employment generation, strict enforcement of all basic labour laws without any exception or exemption and stringent punitive measures for violation of labour laws, universal social security cover for all workers, minimum wages of not less than Rs 15,000 per month with provisions of indexation, assured enhanced pension not less than Rs 3,000 per month for the entire working population, stoppage of disinvestment in central/state PSUs, stoppage of contractorisation in permanent perennial work and payment of wage and benefits to contract workers on a par with regular workers for similar work, removal of all ceilings on payment and eligibility of bonus, provident fund and increase in the quantum of gratuity.
Other demands include compulsory registration of trade unions within 45 days from the date of submitting application and immediate ratification of ILO Conventions C 87 and C 98, , stoppage of pro-employer labour law amendments and FDI in railways, insurance and defence.
In addition to these, the central trade unions are also demanding withdrawal of the Land Acquisition amendment bill.
