Avis Inde : strike

The Working Class Struggles For Its Dignity

We have all learnt about the One Rank One Pension scheme that is demanded by the retired soldiers and officers of the Indian Army, which is fiddled with by the BJP government led by Narendra Modi's coterie in New Delhi. The immense support the movement has gained caused it to hijack national headlines of all mainstream corporate media. The army in India is wrongly connected with the notion of patriotism, and army worship is made an integral part of the fascist society which is developed to consolidate the rule of feudal landlords, comprador capitalists and their master the foreign monopoly capital. Since, the OROP agitation was related to the veterans of the army asking for same pension for same ranks irrespective of when an individual retired from service, became a cause with which the ordinary middle and upper middle classes felt identical with.

The government of Modi, which is backed by the RSS that does military eulogy at every step, has promised to look into the matter and bring a solution which will end the fiasco and make everyone happy. The compromise formula of the government was rejected by several quarters of the agitating veterans, and some sought to conclude a truce with the government by withdrawing their agitation. Very soon a crack appeared in the unity of the veterans and two major factions appeared in the movement. Anyways, the movement seems to be catching the support of the conscience of the middle and upper middle classes and the corporate media is highlighting the plight of the veterans to draw more support for their cause.

At the same time, the working class of the country, who neither enjoy special privileges like the military, nor has any social security or other covers, are struggling for increasing their minimum wages to Rs. 15000 per month, which is a very negligible amount in view of the skyrocketing inflation in the country. The working class is also struggling for a different type of one rank one wage struggle, which calls for similar wages and similar benefits for the workers, both permanent and contractual. However, it seems that the corporate houses are not willing to allow that, as it would affect their profit extraction process that survives on exploiting the labour to the extreme. The media has opposed the agitations of the working class repeatedly, calling them futile and disruptive for 'national growth' and 'economic development', the middle class and upper middle class strongly despise working class movements as they feel these people are filthy and are getting enough for what they do.

The working class along with the peasantry forms the backbone of an economy, on which the pillars of politics, arts, culture, etc survives. The working class is the creator of all values and yet they are deprived from the basic requirements for survival like proper food, medication, clothing, housing and of course education. The government is reluctant to increase the minimum wages to ensure that it does not offends the corporate giants that they exist to appease. Though the increase of minimum wages for the working class will not impose any further burden on the national exchequer but on the huge profit that these multinational corporate houses exploits from India, the government and the big corporations have joined hands to form an unholy nexus against the working class and its demands.

This has left the working class of the country with no other option but to intensify its struggle, take it beyond tokenism, and show the strength of united working class struggle to the multi national corporations and their agent Indian capitalists, who are since trying to rule the country with the rod of injustice and oppression with active assistance from the saffron outfits like the RSS and BJP. The workers of Maruti Udyog in Gurgaon intensified their struggle this September, as the owners of the company hiked the wages of the permanent workers without hiking the wages of the contractual workers who consists of the majority of the workers employed in the production process. The management of the Japanese MNC controlled by Suzuki Corporation (a fascistic organisation) first deployed the police to baton charge the agitating workers, and when the police action remained inadequate the Japanese brought their agent Indian feudal lords and their private goons from the nearby villages of Haryana to intimidate and physically assault the workers. Despite the assaults and intimidation, the workers of Maruti continued their struggle without any break.

The major national news media controlled by the American - Indian in-laws of Japanese corporate Suzuki did not dare to cover this news, they simply blackened the incident of Haryana with the coverage of Modi visiting US and appeasing the corporate giants through his gimmicks and cheap marketing acts. The 'national conscience' of the middle and upper middle classes was not affected, and everyone kept on gossiping on Digital India and its benefits in uplifting the nation.

The struggle of the working class is the struggle for establishing their dignity on everything produced by them. They are not asking for it, they are struggling to establish it with force. Covered by media or not, the struggles that are isolated and weak today will forge iron strong unity in the coming days and will strike the corporate giants and their stooge media like a powerful lightening, burning down the very foundations on which their empire of exploitation stands today.

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, by Tanmoy Ibrahim

capital

What The Corporate Media Preaches To The Working Class

Recently the national media started lamenting on the issue of the working class of the country resorting to the nationwide strike as a medium of protesting and putting up resistance to the neo-liberal economic policies of the BJP led Central Government and its allies. The national mainstream media has been vocal against any form of working class struggle, be it strikes, militant trade union struggle, or mere protest rallies. The corporate controlled media is not willing to tolerate any form of protest of the working class and always advise the workers and employees of the nation to toe the policies of the government, even at the cost of their livelihood for the sake of ‘economic development’, ‘economic growth’ and ‘national growth’.

The question that arises is whose development do the corporate bodies advocate when it talks about ‘national growth’ or ‘economic development’? In the last 15 years, thanks to the neo-liberal economic policies endorsed by subsequent governments led by the BJP and the Congress Party, the Indian economy has surely seen a boom. Despite the economic meltdown that began during the US subprime crisis in the year 2008, India managed to drive across the depression hit world economy, due to immense foreign capital investment in its stock markets, especially in the BFSI, real estate, IT, media and other sectors. India has turned into a safe haven for foreign institutional investors to park their money during troubled time at their home. This makes Indian companies record huge capital gains, despite slow down of economic growth worldwide.

The huge capital investments made by the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) route in several sectors, especially the service sector of the economy, the affluent and rich classes of urban India has experienced a rapid boom, with excessive income that far surpasses the national per capita income. The growth of the nation, as hyped by the corporate media organisations like Times Group, or Hindustan Times Group, both owned by corporate giants, is actually the growth of wealth of the rich, which has driven the poor to the poorer segment and the poorest to the segment of pauperisation and starvation.

To add fuel to the loco of this so-called development model, the corporate bodies lobbied for more access into the hinterland of the country in search of cheap raw materials, land and labour. The corporate groups, funded by foreign monopoly and finance capital were allowed to plunder the nation and its resources, especially the minerals, land, water resources, and cheap labour to burgeon their profit books. The people on the other hand were evicted from their lands, especially the oppressed castes, tribal people; the poorest of the poor were targeted as lambs of sacrifice.

This so called development model has widened the economic difference between two broad sections of the people. On one hand, there are the rich, super rich, upper middle class, the affluent urban society which is accumulating wealth through the organisations blessed with foreign monopoly capital investment, which is causing them to lead a super luxurious life, boosting the luxury apparel industry and foreign monopoly capital owned FMCG industry. On the other hand, there are the broad masses of people, including but not limited to, the workers, peasants, toiled people, urban poor, and lower middle classes. These people are facing constant isolation from the growth trajectory of the rich, as for them the growing consumerist industry and its aggression is causing the problems like inflation, rapid rise in living costs, and ever diminishing real income.

Therefore, on several occasions these classes, who forms nearly 90% of the Indian population bursts out in protest against the burden of exploitation and oppression levelled upon them by the rich and the government that favours the rich. As a result of this the working class and mass struggles takes the militant form to press the establishment and make it concede by force the justified demands of the people.

However, such acts of open rebellion against the policies of corporate plunder and exploitation by the 90% of the population often draws ire of the 10%, which is expressed by these 10% of the population through their mouthpieces like the corporate controlled television channels, news papers and internet sites. They vehemently oppose the working class, the peasantry, the poor and lower middle class people resorting to militant struggle to press for their justified demands in a democratic country. They call the endeavours of the working class and peasantry, even the most peaceful one, excesses committed by the people.

How do these corporate controlled media and their puppet journalists plan to resolve the problems that the working class faces? They all answer – through the mercy and grace of the mighty capitalist lords they hope that the problems of the workers will be solved. That means that the working class should shed all forms of protests, and plead with the Indian capitalists and their foreign masters for granting them some charity. These corporate honchos want the Indian people to pay lip service to democracy and allow them to enjoy all privileges enjoyed by them through government patronage.

So, we can see that if there is a rally of the workers on the streets, it is despised as a traffic decelerator, causing discomfort to commuters (ie those riding their Benz or Audi). If there is a strike, it is called a spoilsport as it allegedly destroys mandays and cause loss to the corporate account books. If the people resort to voice their protest through meetings, then they are shown the farthest corners of the cities, where no one can hear their concerns, for example, at the isolated corner of Connaught Place, we have the Jantar Mantar, as a venue for all type of protests with no voice reaching the people of Delhi.

In case we see the data released on the Industrial disputes by the labour ministry till 2012, we can find that the number of lockouts, lay off, and closure in the private sector industries far surpass the number of strikes in such industries. However, alike the strikes of the workers, the labour retrenchment and closures of factories which cause immense agony among the working class, is not considered a crime by any court of law of this country. No newspaper editorial or TV anchor sheds any crocodile tear for the agony of the workers and the poor people affected by such arbitrary actions of the foreign big monopoly capital and their Indian lackeys. Rather these very representatives of the foreign capital interest argues in favour of these capitalists, asking the government to provide them ‘more’ leverage and ‘favourable’ conditions for business growth.

The problem is that our middle classes are influenced by such propaganda of the corporate big capital, and their representatives keeps on parroting the lines of the corporate honchos, even unaware of the fact that such policies always goes against their own class interests, and even future survival in a country which is fast turning into a neo colony of foreign big monopoly capital.

We need to think, we need to act, now; otherwise it will be too late very soon.

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, by Tanmoy Ibrahim

2nd September

Supporting The Nationwide General Strike on 2nd September

The nationwide strike, on 2nd September 2015, called by the labour unions of all shades and employees association is a protest movement that we should all strive to make successful. The strike is a protest struggle against the neo-liberal policies of the Narendra Modi led BJP government, which is following the footsteps of the previous Congress government in a very impenitent manner. The policy of the government that promotes the causes of the big monopoly finance capital funded corporations is causing grave harm to the cause of the nation and the interest of the broad masses of the people. The pro-corporate media is broadcasting these neo-liberal pro corporate policies with much hype, to build public opinion in favour of the endeavours of the Modi government, especially among the middle and affluent sections of the urban society, who benefit the most from such measures at the cost of the distress of the poor people.

The Modi led BJP government, through an extensive campaign carried on behest of it by the corporate media, diluted the labour regulations, thereby snatched the hard owned rights of the working classes to unite and struggle for better working conditions and wages. In order to impose a corporate tyranny, the government removed a large section of small and medium enterprises from the purview of labour unions, denying the workers employed in such enterprises any right to organise themselves against the employers or place their demands, and turned them to live in complete dependence upon the generosity of the capitalists.

The previous governments, starting from the Vajpayee regime to the Manmohan regime, has systematically lifted the conditions like fixed working hours, bonus, gratuity, pension, and other benefits from the rulebook to ensure that the corporate houses enjoy a free ride by exploiting labour to the farthest extreme possible. The establishment of SEZ's and adoption of a so called 'flexible' labour regulations had been a trump card in the hand of the political leadership of the country to serve the interest of the big corporate houses, of which the Gujarat ruled by Modi had been a classic 'model' that BJP wants to replicate on a nationwide scale.

The government of Modi has shamelessly carried forward the same anti-people legacy of its predecessors to new heights of corporate appeasement.

These days, the employees of the private firms are at the worst state, as they are losing job security, right to pension, provident fund, health insurance and other benefits. The government agencies has embraced a regime of outsourcing all major functions to the contractors who employ contract labour at one tenth of the wages of a regular government employee. The business enterprises are experiencing swelling of profit, with huge investments happening in new trades and ventures as they are saving significantly in labour cost. These investments are again failing to generate employment opportunities, as the governments and corporate media preaches, due to capital intensive technologies that reduce the dependence on labour.

Working condition in factories and offices are becoming quite hectic for people, as there are worst working hours, excessive workload, less work force, and uneven appraisal and salary hike. On the other hand, the inflation, especially in food items, is skyrocketing every week, and the poor and lower middle classes are facing tough times to make a living.

Apart from the workers and employees the peasantry is facing the continuous threat of land grabbing by corporate sharks, especially for real estate ventures, which is not only threatening the existence of the peasantry near the urban dwellings, but also threatens the nation with extreme food crisis in the near future. The government of Modi led BJP is shamelessly supporting and throwing its weight behind the anti peasants Land Acquisition Act, which is deployed through ordinances to ensure that the corporate houses reap huge benefit by acquiring land arbitrarily without doing any socio-economic impact survey.

Pro corporate policies has even turned the education and healthcare to the corporate sector with reduction in government investment in these sectors, which has turned both quite expensive for the common people to avail. Medicine costs are spiralling due to the dismantling of the price control mechanism, and private universities are mushrooming in comparison to new government funded education institutes.

The affluent sections of urban rich and upper middle classes are able to make a great living during these distressful times, as they are able to financially back up their endeavours through an ever increasing income, which is causing a great income gap in the country, lowering the general purchasing power of the broad masses, which is resulting into declining of industrial outputs, followed by more retrenchment of workforce from the factories.

The radical ‘hire & fire’ system employed in hiring and firing employees and workers without prior notice or proper compensation has resulted into a volatile situation in the labour camp. Genuine demands of the work force are curtailed by citing non-sense reasons and bullying the working class with the threat of job cuts.

Urban rich, affluent upper middle classes, along with high and middle ranking corporate sector employees are parroting the lines of the corporate controlled news media, re-broadcasting the propaganda of the monopoly-finance capital, that the liberalisation of the economy and more foreign investment are the only path for economic development of the nation. These uncritical pawns of the ruling classes never do any critical and objective analysis of the situation and suffer from subjectivism and metaphysics, a very peculiar attribution of their class and socio-economic position.

In a nation like India, economic development of one class means that the other class, in antagonistic relation with the first one, will suffer from wreckage in its own economic condition. Hence, the economic development that the rich, super rich, urban upper middle classes welcome so warmly is targeted to cause immense agony to the poor workers and peasants of the country, who constitute 76% of the Indian population.

The nation, its resources, its manpower are now constantly threatened with an ever aggressive corporate honchos and their feudal lackeys. The government of Modi led BJP is firmly determined to sell off the resources of the nation at a throw away price to the foreign monopoly capital, arrest and jail the dissidents by accusing them of being ‘Maoist’ and turn the country into a communal battleground by inciting communal riots between the majority Hindus and minority Muslims and Christians.

The strike on 2^nd September, called by all trade unions opposing the anti-people policies of the government, along with the employees of almost all trades and industries, is a primary sign of warning to the BJP led government, to cease the anti people activities. If it fails to heed to the collective demand of the broad masses of working people on the issues raised, the people will take the course of higher forms of strong resistance struggle against the autocratic fascist rule of the saffron brigade and pull it down by uniting all patriotic and democratic forces together.

History teaches us that the powerful, the mighty, the tyrants, never vacate their throne spontaneously, but are pulled down by the collective struggle of the masses. India needs a strong democratic struggle of the people, especially the working classes and the peasantry to pull down the fascist regime through extensive struggles and build up a fair, responsible, democratic and patriotic government which will dedicate its resources towards the economic and socio-political liberation of the poor and downtrodden masses.

I invite you all personally, to be a bandwagon of the democratic struggle against the fascist Modi government, which has darkened the shadow of doom on the lives of the Indian peasants and workers.

Let us collectively make the general strike of the working class and employees of all trades a successful and extraordinary event on the 2^nd September 2015.