AN OVERVIEW

The meeting of the General Council of the CITU held at Ranchi, Jharkhand on July 15 – 18, 2006, decided to hold the CITU all India Twelfth Conference of the CITU in Bangaluru, Karnataka.

At Bangalore, a Reception Committee for the Twelfth Conference of the CITU was formed at a meeting held at the Bangalore Town Hall on July 3, 2006, with V J K Nair, Vice President, CITU and General Secretary, Karnataka State Committee as President and S. Prasannakumar, Secretary, CITU, Karnataka, as General Secretary. Several sub-committees were entrusted with the work relating to various logistical aspects of hosting the Conference.

In the run up of the Conference, five jathas led by CITU leadership started from Amritsar, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Triuvananthapuram to travel across the country holding numerous meetings and rallies on the way to converge at the conference venue at Bangalore on 17th January 2007. The meetings and rallies held enroute in different States, districts and industrial centres received enthusiastic response from the people of all walks of life. The inaugural session of the Conference commenced with a welcome accorded to the participants of the Jatha.

The Conference was held at the sprawling Palace Grounds on the Bellary Road, Bangalore. The venue was named Suryanarayan Rao Nagar, after the veteran leader of the trade union movement of Karnataka. The entrance gates were named after the deceased leaders C Kannan, K Ramani and Amal Gosh Dastidar. all former members of the CITU Secretariat.

At the outset, M K Pandhe, President, CITU, received a Guard of Honour with a colourful parade of the red-shirt volunteers. He also hoisted the CITU flag, amidst thunderous slogans by the delegates and the large gathering of workers assembled at the venue. Floral tributes were paid at the Martyrs’ Column by the members of the CITU Secretariat and by the leaders of State-wise delegations.

V J K Nair, Chairman of the Reception Committee, welcomed the delegates in the inaugural session. It was followed by the Presidential address by M K Pandhe, which dealt on the international scenario distinctively featured by loud opposition to the policies of neoliberal imperialist globalisation being voiced by the toiling people all over the world, including in India.

George Mavricos, General Secretary, World Federation of Trade Unions and Leyla Tegmo Reddy, Director, Sub-regional Office, ILO conveyed fraternal greetings to the Conference. The leaders of Central Trade Unions who addressed the inaugural session included: R Shankar of AICCTU, Gurudas Dasgupta of AITUC, M Adhyantaya of INTUC, Shivsankar of TUCC and K Radhakrishna of UTUC-LS.

2439 delegates, of whom 297 were women, attended the Conference. The delegates came from all the States in the country and representing the workers from all the sectors of the economy, both organised and unorganised, both public and private sector, from both manufacturing and service segments.

The composition of international delegation to the 12th Conference of CITU reflected a rare expression of international fraternity of workers of the world, irrespective of political affiliations and having wide geographical coverage. Trade Unions, affiliates of both the WFTU and ICFTU and many independent ones, from various parts of the world participated in the Conference. Around 56 representatives of trade unions from 38 organisations and 28 countries attended the Conference. The countries represented were: France, Italy, UK, Hungary, Mexico, Cuba, Japan, Russia, Spain, Greece, USA, Austria, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Australia, Mauritious, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, China, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Thailand, Cyprus and Venezuela. Besides the Director, ILO, Phong Sul Ahn, Senior Specialist, ILO, also attended the Conference.

Chittabrata Majumdar, General Secretary, CITU, presented his report in the delegates’ session. Ranjit Basu, Treasurer, CITU, placed his report together with the statement of accounts for the years 2003 to 2005.

51 delegates from different States participated in the deliberation on General Secretary’s report. Speakers from different States and industries, while narrating their experience of bitter struggle in defence of the rights of the workers in different sectors braving victimisation and brutal atrocities by the employers-administration combine, emphasised the need for intensifying the countrywide united resistance against the onslaughts on labour rights in the days to come.

Representing the fraternal mass organisations, Nurul Huda of All India Kisan Sabha, Sunit Chopra of All India Agricultural Workers’ Union, Sudha Sundararaman of AIDWA, Mahesh Tyagi of DYFI and Arun Kumar of SFI addressed the Delegates’ session of the Conference. Leaders from fraternal trade union organisations, who greeted the Conference, included: S Muthu Sundaram of All India State Governmnet Employees’ Federation, K K N Kutty of the Confederation of the Central Government Employees and Workers, N M Sundaram of All India Insurance Employees’ Association, C C Pillai of the National Federation of Postal Employees, Sailo Bhattacharyya of the Allo India Defence Employees’ Federation, Pradip Biswas of the Bank Employees’ Federation of India, Samir Ghosh of All India Reserve Bank Employees’ Association, Dilip Mukherjee of All India Rural Bank Employees’ Association and D P Dubey of Federation of Medical Representatives Associations of India.

The Conference held a separate session on working women. K Hemalata, Secretary, CITU, presented before the conference “The Declaration on Tasks on the Working Women Front”, based on the document adopted by the All India Convention of Working Women held at Visakhapatnam on November 3 – 5, 2007. 27 delegates from different States and industries took part in the deliberation.

The fourth day of the Conference was devoted to discussion in Commissions on six different issues of crucial relevance to working class movement in the country. The Subjects were 1) International Trade Union Movement: Some Recent Developments and Strengthening of Unity, 2) Judiciary and the Indian Working Class, 3) Approach Paper of 11th Five Year Plan - A Working Class Perspective, 4) Menace of Contractorisation and Outsourcing, 5) World Trade Organisation- Present Issues and Challenges, 6) Special Economic Zones - Need for Policy Review. A K Padmanabhan, Kali Ghosh, Raghunath Singh, Mercykutty Amma, Deben Bhattacharya and S Veeraiah chaired the Commissions and Swadesh Dev Roye, K Hemalata, Jibon Roy, Tapan Sen, W R Varada Rajan and Dipankar Mukherjee presented and summed up the discussion papers. Around 300 delegates took part in the deliberations in all the commissions and made important suggestions and observations on the concerned subjects. It was decided that the CITU Secretariat would finalise the Commission Documents taking into consideration the points raised in the deliberations.

The Conference unanimously adopted a number of Resolutions on various subjects of relevance. They are 1) Greeting the working class of Karnataka (moved by W R Varada Rajan, Secretary, CITU and seconded by Prasannakumar, General Secretary of Karnataka State CITU) 2) Demanding immediate legislation on Agricultural Workers (moved by K Hemalata, Secretary and seconded by Raghunath Singh, Vice President, CITU), 3) Against Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Bill (moved by W R Varada Rajan, Secretary, CITU and seconded by Sukomal Sen, General Secretary, All India State Government Employees Federation), 4) In support of the ongoing strike by the Jute workers in West Bengal (moved by S Veeraiah, Secretary, CITU and seconded by Gobinda Guha, General Secretary, Bengal Chatkal Mazdoor Union) and 5) On Price Rise (moved by K Ravindranath and seconded by K L Bajaj, both Secretaries of CITU), 6) Demanding ban on export of iron ore from the country (moved by Bishnu Mahanty, General Secretary, Orissa State CITU and seconded by S K Bakshi, Secretary CITU), 7) Demanding expansion of public sector in pharmaceutical industry, measures for price-reduction and availability of essential medicines (moved by P K Ganguly, Working Committee member CITU and seconded by R. Viswanathan, FMRAI, 8) On Agrarian Distress (moved by Jibon Roy, Secretary CITU and seconded by Ravindra Shukla, General Secretary, Rajasthan State CITU). Besides these, the Conference also adopted a number of resolutions dealing with the issues and problems related to different sectors of industries and the economy.

Chittabrata Majumdar, General Secretary, summed up the deliberations, after which the Conference adopted unanimously the General Secretary’s report, the declaration on Tasks on Working Women Front and the Statement of Accounts.

The Conference unanimously elected a 35 member Secretariat, 425-member General Council and 125-member Working Committee. M K Pandhe, Chittabrata Majumdar and Ranjit Basu were re-elected President, General Secretary and Treasurer respectively.

Samar Mukherjee, former General Secretary of CITU, released the Special Souvenir brought out by the Reception Committee. R. Umanath, a former Vice President of CITU, received the first copy. Samar Mukherjee, in his brief address, recalled that the CITU has enshrined socialism as its goal in its constitution and urged all comrades to work relentlessly for ending the present exploitative regime.

M. K. Pandhe, President, CITU, concluded the 12th Conference with his inspiring address.

The Conference concluded with a massive public rally at the Government Arts College grounds in the centre of the Bangalore city drawing several thousands workers, including a large gathering of women workers. The leaders who addressed the mass rally included: V J K Nair, S Prasanna Kumar, B Madhava, Maruti Manpade, G. Sri Rama Reddy and S Varalakshmi, all leaders of Karnataka State CITU and by M K Pandhe and Chittabrata Majumdar, President and General Secretary of CITU respectively.