People's Democracy

The Sponsoring Committee of central trade unions has given a call to the people of the country in general and the working class in particular to observe May 15 as a National Protest Day against the ongoing genocide in Gujarat. Protest demonstrations, rallies and all other forms effective for the different locations in the country will be adopted to convey the protest. The committee has also reiterated its demand for the dismissal of Narendra Modi government.

The Sponsoring Committee consisting of the central trade unions - AITUC, CITU, HMS, AICCTU, UTUC(LS), UTUC, TUCC and the national federations of the trade unions in industrial, financial sectors and the associations of central and state government employees - met on May 1 in New Delhi. The meeting which was attended by the representatives of the constituents, was presided over by Gurudas Das Gupta, general secretary, AITUC and the discussion was initiated by M K Pandhe, general secretary CITU.

The Sponsoring Committee congratulated the workers and employees for making the April 16 nationwide strike the biggest trade union action of the working class in the recent past in the country against the Fund-Bank-WTO dictated anti-people economic policies pursued by the BJP-led NDA government. It noted that with their massive participation in the strike, the working class has demonstrated its fighting mood and created the ground for further bigger action against the suicidal polices of the government. The committee decided to further strengthen the unity of the trade union movement and to concretize the next phase of action in consultation with the entire trade union movement which obviously shall be much bigger than the April 16 strike.

The Sponsoring Committee extended full support to the decision of the trade unions in coal-mines to go for a week-long strike all over the country in the first week of August 2002 and appealed to all the workers to organise solidarity action with the coal workers.