Members of All India United Trade Union Centre staged a demonstration as part of their week-long agitation against the Central government’s economic policies, here on Wednesday.
The AIUTUC activists said though the BJP came to power at the Centre promising better days, things have only gone from bad to worse for the working class.
The trade union members said the recent policies of the government had rendered the working class vulnerable to job insecurity as the laws had been tweaked in favour of the industrialists. While prices of essential commodities were skyrocketing, employment generation was slowing down, according to AIUTUC.
The activists said the earning power of the working class was diminishing while the government was trying to transfer public assets like the railways, power generation, airport, highways, and ports to private companies.
The AIUTUC also flayed the decision of the government to allow private players in defence manufacturing and said there was also an effort to privatise weapons-manufacturing units that functioned as public sector units so far. There was a demand to disband the New Pension Scheme and reintroduce the earlier scheme.
The AIUTUC demanded that the right to employment be made a fundamental right and sought pension at the rate of ₹10,000 per month for all retirees drawing pension at present, besides increasing the minimum wage to ₹28,000 per month. Other demands included an end to outsourcing of jobs, a reduction in prices of essential commodities, a rollback of the amendment to labour law paving way for 12 hours of work etc.
AIUTUC leaders V. Yashodhar, Chandrashekar Meti, Harish, P.S. Sandhya, Rajeshwari, Mangala, Nagesh Murthy, and others took part in the demonstration.
