Banking, insurance, telecommunications and other essential services were disrupted in the district on Tuesday, the second day of the nationwide strike call given by central trade unions to protest the ‘anti-worker, anti-people’ policies of the Centre.
Employees in various sectors including postal, banks, insurance and electricity formed a massive human chain to mark their protest against the ‘denial of rights of the workers achieved after a long struggle’, and demanded scrapping of the new labour code.
Leading the protest, All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) State working president V. Radhakrishna Murthy asserted that the workers would fight with all their mite to prevent the sale of public sector units, including the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, as they had been built with the decades of toil of the working class. The Centre had no moral right to go ahead with its National Monetisation Plan (NMP), they said.
Samyukta Kisan Morcha Prakasam district convener Ch. Ranga Rao said farmers and farm labourers would join hands with industrial workers to fight the ‘corporate-friendly’ policies of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, alleging that it was favouring a select group of corporate firms.
Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) leader Siddaiah lamented that the Union and State governments meted out a raw deal to Anganwadi, ASHA, and midday meal workers. These employees, hired on a contractual basis, deserve equal pay for equal work, he demanded.
Skyrocketing prices of all essential commodities including petrol and diesel have made people’s lives people miserable, All India Federation of Trade Unions leader R. Mohan said and demanded immediate steps by the Centre to check price rise.
