All-India Conference of Workers’ Council

Call to oppose the anti-worker amendments to labour laws

The Third All-India Conference of the Workers’ Council was organized on 9th November 2014 in Arya Nagar in Lucknow.

It was decided that the resolutions passed at the Conference at the end of four days’ consultation would be taken among the people through a mass campaign. The resolutions are presented here:

Call to oppose the anti-worker amendments to labour laws

The Third All-India Conference of the Workers’ Council was organized on 9th November 2014 in Arya Nagar in Lucknow.

It was decided that the resolutions passed at the Conference at the end of four days’ consultation would be taken among the people through a mass campaign. The resolutions are presented here:

Workers’ Council will present a new labour law to the people that will be applicable to all workers of the country. A committee will be set up to draft this law afresh keeping in view the current scenario.

From Kindergarten (pre-primary) to Post Graduate, education must be provided free to all. Public health services should also be provided free of cost. The government will acquire all the private hospitals, dispensaries and schools.

A country-wide campaign will be carried out to demand livelihood for all. If the government is unable to guarantee livelihood for all, then it should provide unemployment allowance for unemployed youth.

Immediate revocation of the law according to which bail is available only to the propertied; identity cards of citizens must be made the basis for granting bail. Immediate revocation of Civil Jail Law, established by the British, that is applied to those peasants who are unable to pay back their loans owed to the government.

Women workers, whether in the private or public sector must be eligible for one year’s paid maternity leave.

Besides the above, there were resolutions to run county-wide campaigns against land acquisition, communalism, everyone’s right over natural resources, caste based discrimination and price rise

Prior to this, addressing the Conference during inaugural session, Workers’ Council President O.P Sinha said that we need to deliberate and discuss in the various sessions of the Conference on what strategy must be employed in our struggle to end the miserable conditions and marginalization of the masses of people. He said that the people are suffering from deprivation of livelihood, injustices, oppression by the police, administration and law, are exploited under the Contract Labour system and are victims of poor education and health services. Ruination of peasants and displacement are big problems. It is the demand of the times to work out how a big movement of workers and toilers can be created.

Speaking on the occasion, various speakers said that we must target the attempts by those in power and the corporate world, to divide the people on the basis of caste and religion and the policies that are applied to exploit them. They emphasized that the working people must unite on a broad basis to overthrow the existing capitalist system and establish a system that is based on justice, socialism and genuine democracy. For this, all working people must unite to form one mass movement. Prof. Sheomangal Sidhantkar, C.B. Singh, Manik Dutta, K.N.Shukla, Bal Govind Singh, Ramkrishna and others presented their views in the opening session.

Representatives of Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Delhi, Karnataka, Bihar, Jharkhand, Gujarat, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and other states, who had come, participated enthusiastically in the Conference. Young artists from the People’s Artists Council presented revolutionary cultural programme that included songs, ghazals, dance and poetry.

On the second day of the Conference, Suranjan Bhattacharya – working class leader from West Bengal said that those who think that change cannot be brought about through the application of Marxism are short sighted and pessimistic. How do we become the voice of the masses of working people? G.P. Varma – President of the Workers Union in Rasara Spinning Mill in Balia said that fresh efforts are necessary to raise the consciousness of the workers. Avdesh Singh said that workers and peasants depend on each other. Their problems are also linked and so they must come together. He said that uneven development is a necessary consequence of capitalism and the inequalities will increasing with increasing spread of capitalism. Today, our people have no idea of socialism. For this the working class must be imbued with Marxist consciousness.

Com. Prakash Rao, spokesperson of the Communist Ghadar Party of India pointed out that the struggle was between two classes and not between parties. We must keep our spirits high in this struggle, as victory will be ours. Society is proceeding towards the end of capitalism. Today’s democracy is dictate of capital and we have to end this and bring in socialist democracy. Capitalism is driving the world to disaster. We have to fight this. M.K. Singh, Ragvendra Pratap Singh, Dilip Singh, Mona Sur, K.K. Shukla, Rmakrishna and others addressed the session.

“A resolution on the organisational form of political mass movements” was tabled on the third day. Ram Krishna of Workers’ Council addressed the Conference. He said that in the present context of increasing attacks on workers, it is necessary for Workers’ Council to strengthen itself organizationally so that it can resolutely advance its struggle. We have learnt new things and experiences during our work and through discussion we can come to mutual agreement on how to use these to advance our organisation. He shared his experiences in detail with the participants at the Conference.

Ragvendra Pratap Singh from Allahabad said that our unity must be strengthened so that we can realize better results. K.K. Shukla said that the activists in the movement must imbue themselves with revolutionary consciousness and culture so as to continuously advance the workers’ revolutionary movement.

Shivaji Rai, Vyas Muni Mishra, Shahnawaz Alam, Aruna Singh, Om Prakash, Advocate Mohammed Shoib, Advocate Lakshmi Narayan, Latha Rai, Naresh Kumar, Mohammed Masood, Biplav Datta, Akhilesh Saxena, Devdas Vanvas Chauhan, Rajesh Upadhyay, Radheshyam Yadav, S.B. Phulambarkar, A.M. Badole, Ashok Rao Hath Dhongde, Chaturanan Oza, Abay Kumar Shrivastav, Rajdev Bhagat, Digamber, Ram Naresh Rai, Girdhari Prasad Mandal, Ganesh Diwan Verma, Rajiv Mohan, M. Rajan, Amrish Kumar, Dilip Singh, Arvind Gundandhe Patil, Sanjay. N. Meshram were among those who presided and presented their views at the various sessions of the 4-day Conference.

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