People's Democracy

PROTECT THE RIGHT TO STRIKE 

Massive March To Parliament By Govt Employees, Teachers

THOUSANDS of central and state government employees and teachers from across the country staged a massive ‘March to Parliament’ on December 7 demanding protection to the right to strike and urging the government to ratify the International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions recognising such a right.

The demonstrators marched in a procession from the Ramlila ground to parliament. They were however stopped near Parliament house from proceeding further. The procession then was converted into a mass demonstration on parliament street. There was heavy deployment of the police and the Rapid Action Force (RAF) all along the route.

Today’s action was jointly organised by the Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers (Confederation) and the All India State Government Employees Federation (AISGEF) and the School and University Teachers Federations (SUTF).  The meeting that was held near the parliament street police station was addressed by S K Vyas, secretary general, Confederation, Sukomal Sen, secretary general, AISGEF, C C Pillai, chairman, Confederation, K K N Kutty, secretary, Confederation, Jibon Roy, MP, Rami Reddy of the SUTF and  various other leaders.

Later a delegation consisting S K Vyas, CC Pillai, KKN Kutty, Vrige Bhattacharya, R G Karnik, M R Appan, R C Jagga, Lallan Pandey, K K Theekedath, Tushar Panchanan, Rami Reddy, Sukomal Sen and Ajoy Mukherjee met the Speaker at the parliament house and handed over to him a petition signed by more than 4 crore persons seeking the intervention of his good office for the introduction of a legislation in the parliament to grant the trade union and other democratic rights, including the right to strike, to government employees.

This programme was organised as per the decision of the convention of central and state government employees held in September 2003 in the wake of the decision of the Supreme Court against the right to strike. The Supreme Court in its infamous judgement  in the case of the state government employees of Tamilnadu, had opined that the workers have no ‘fundamental, statutory or moral right to strike.

The memorandum has inter alia pointed that the Government of India, despite being the founder member of ILO has not yet ratified its conventions No. 87, 98, 154 and 151 which affords the workers the right to organise, collective bargaining and the right to strike.

The memorandum has appealed to the government to scrap the colonial rules regulating the service conditions of the government employees as enshrined in Article 309 of the Constitution. (INN)