government of India to withdraw the benefits under the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, for the MGNREGA workers.

The government of India has directed all the state and UT governments to withdraw registration of MGNREGA workers under the Building and Other Construction Workers (RECS) Act vide Labour Ministry's Order dated 10th February 2017.

It is to be recalled that the decision to include MGNREGA workers who have completed 50 days of work, under the Building and Other Construction Workers Act, was taken in 2013 after the Supreme Court has directed the government in 2012 to issue appropriate directions for the effective implementation of the Act.

It is highly regrettable that instead of taking measures to ensure effective implementation of the Act and that the welfare benefits under the Act reach the workers, the government has denied the poor workers the benefits to which they were entitled. Less than 32% of construction workers were registered under the Act as in January 2016. The amount collected as cess was Rs 24277.38 crores while it has been estimated that Rs 70270 crores ought to have been collected. And out of this only a measly sum of Rs 5684.8 crores has been spent for the benefit of nearly 2.3 crores workers registered with the board.
Since the BJP led government has come to power at the centre in 2014, it has been attacking the MGNREGA. Adequate funds are not. being provided. The number of days of work provided under MGNREGA was less than 50 at the national level, making most of the MGNREGA workers ineligible even as per the earlier direction. In such a situation, instead of taking measures to improve their conditions, withdrawing even the existing benefit is deplorable.

CITU demands that government of India to immediately withdraw the concerned direction to the state and UT governments and continue registration of MGNREGA workers under the Building and Other Construction Workers' Act. CITU calls upon all the organisations of MGNREGA workers and the building and construction workers, irrespective of affiliations to join together to bring pressure on the government to withdraw the concerned direction to the state and UT government. It calls upon all its state committees to support the struggle of the MGNREGA workers against the withdrawal of their benefits.

Issued by
Tapan Sen
General Secretary

After a sustained struggle by the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), Central Govt. was forced to pass an Act i.e. “Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act and Building and other Construction Workers’ Welfare Cess Act in 1996, to regulate the employment and conditions of service and to provide for safety, health and welfare measures for crores of building and other construction workers in the country. The State Government were directed to constitute Building and other construction workers’ welfare Boards. Construction workers who have worked for 90 days in a year can be registered with the construction workers welfare board. These welfare boards will provide immediate assistance to a beneficiary, who is registered with the board, in case of accident, making payment of pension, giving financial assistance for marriage of son/daughter of the construction workers, scholarship to the two children of the registered construction workers. The implementation of various provisions of these Act specially those relating to registration of workers as beneficiaries, collection of cess and its utilization for welfare of Building and other construction workers is the responsibility of the State government and State Building and other construction workers Welfare Board.

It has been noticed that very low percentage of construction workers are registered on beneficiary with the different Welfare Boards. Similarly percentage utilization of funds for welfare of construction workers has also been very low in large number of states.

Hon’ble Supreme Court vide his order dated the February 2012 has issued specific directions asking the Central Government to issue appropriate directions under Section 60 of the Board Act 1996 as well as Cess Act, 1996 for effective implementation of the Act. Otherwise also, the Central Govt. has been empowered under section 60 of the Building and other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions as Service) Act, 1996 to issue directions to the states and boards for carrying in to execution any of the provisions of the Act.

Keeping in view, the low registration of construction workers with the Construction Workers Welfare Board, the Central Govt. has directed all the State Govts to launch special drive for registration of MNREGA workers, who have completed 50 days of work in a year, under BOCW (RECS) Act on the basis of simpler process like self-certification by the applicants or certification by Panchayats etc. After these directions lakhs of MNREGA workers were registered with different construction welfare boards and were given financial benefits.

In 2014, BJP Govt came to power in the centre. BJP Govt. first attacked the MNREGA scheme and said that it is useless and it is not creating assets and has became the class of corruption. But MNREGA has become an Act and BJP Govt. has not sufficient number of MP in both the houses of Parliament. They started weakening of MNREGA by not providing sufficient funds for this scheme. In many times they stopped money for material component like cement, sand etc. and some other time they did not release money for wages of the MNREGA workers.

Now at last on 10th February 2017 the BJP Govt. led by Narendra Modi has snatched the Social Welfare Scheme given by construction welfare board under BOCW Act. Ministry of Labour and Employment, Govt. of India on 10th February, 2017 in its letter has communicated as under – “ Directions were issued by the Ministry’s letter under reference regarding registration of MNREGA workers who have completed 50 days of work in a year under MNREGA under BOCW (RECS) Act on the basis of simpler process like self certification by the applicants or certification by Panchayat etc.”.

The issue of registration of MNREGA workers as beneficiary under the Building and other construction workers (RECS) Act, 1996 has been re-examined in the Ministry and it has been decided to withdraw these directions.”

Now after withdrawal of these directions by Narendra Modi Govt., lakhs of MNREGA workers, majority of them are women will not get scholarship for their children will not get medical aid, will not get money for marriage of their son or daughter, will not get money for repair of their house, will not get other monetary assistance/help from the welfare board. The CITU strongly condemn this barbaric decision of the BJP Govt. and appeal the Central Govt. to withdraw its notorious letter of 10th February 2017 and direct the State Govt. to register MNREGA workers as beneficiary and Board Act, 1996.

The Central Trade Unions express deep distress and anguish at the sentence of life to 13 workers and of 5 years jail to another four workers of Maruti Suzuki in connection with the violence plotted by the management in the Manesar plant of Maruti in 2012. In the same judgements 117 workers were acquitted honourably and 14 worker let off with sentence to the period they were in Jail.

The violence in 2012 in which a general manager of the factory was killed was the handiwork of hired musclemen of Maruti Suzuki management meant to create the ground for crushing the unions. Despite no way being responsible for the incident, the workers have been convicted on the basis of concocted evidence manufactured by the state administration, police and employer nexus in a shameless abuse of power. More than 546 regular and 2000 contract workers were thrown out of their jobs and 148 workers were thrown into jail for up to four and half years..

However the heinous design of the Haryana state administration-capitalist league to crush the trade union movement in the Gurgaon industrial area could not be achieved fully. Over one lakh workers in the area boycotted lunch on 16th March in spontaneous expression of protest. The workers of Maruti and its ancillaries/ subsidiaries in Gurgaon/ Manesar went on total strike for one hour strike in the evening shift of 18thMarch. Workers’ unions in Gurgaon industrial belt had massive protest demonstration on 23rd March in solidarity with the victimised workers including filing of appeal against the conviction.

The Central Trade Unions denounce the ugly game of the state and capital nexus with the same vehemence with which they denounced the violence of 2012 and congratulate the workers for their immediate and united response. The CTUs assert that the trade union movement cannot be cowed down with such nefarious acts by the government-employer nexus.

The CTUs express their solidarity with the struggle of the Maruti workers and the initiative of the industrial workers under the banner of Trade Union Council, Gurgaon in support of the Maruti workers. The CTUs call upon all the trade unions irrespective of affiliations and workers in general to come forward in solidarity with the Maruti workers struggle for justice including the legal battle. The CTUs also call upon all the trade unions in the country irrespective of affiliations to organise demonstrations in their workplaces or the industrial centres on 5th April 2017 as a mark of solidarity with the Maruti workers struggling for justice and for trade union rights and demanding unconditional release of the Maruti workers and reinstatement of victimised workers.

20th March 2017

The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) expresses its deep distress and anguish at the sentence of life to 13 workers and of 5 years jail to another four workers of Maruti Suzuki in connection with the violence in the Manesar plant of Maruti in 2012.

The violence in 2012 in which a general manager of the factory was killed was the handiwork of hired musclemen of Maruti Suzuki management meant to create the ground for crushing the unions. Despite no way being responsible for the incident, the workers have been convicted on the basis of concocted evidence manufactured by the state administration, police and employer nexus in a shameless abuse of power. More than 500 workers were thrown out of their jobs and over 200 workers were thrown into jail for up to four and half years. 117 of them had to be acquitted.

However the heinous designs of the Haryana state administration capitalist league to crush the trade union movement in the Gurgaon industrial area could not be achieved fully. Over one lakh workers in the area boycotted lunch on 16th March in spontaneous expression of protest. The workers of Maruti and its ancillaries/ subsidiaries in Gurgaon/ Manesar went on total strike for one hour strike in the evening shift of 18th March. Workers’ unions in Gurgaon industrial area are planning united actions in solidarity with the victimised workers including filing of appeal against the conviction.

CITU denounces the ugly game of the state and capital nexus with the same vehemence with which it denounced the violence of 2012 and congratulates the workers for their immediate and united response. CITU asserts that the trade union movement will not accept and cannot be cowed down with such nefarious acts by the government employer nexus.

CITU expresses its solidarity with the struggle of the Maruti workers and the initiative of the industrial workers unions of Gurgaon in support of the Maruti workers. It calls upon all its state committees, all its affiliated unions and the entire trade union movement irrespective of affiliations to come forward in solidarity with the Maruti workers struggle for justice including the legal battle.

Issued by:
K. Hemalata
President

Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) salutes the 13 lakhs central government employees all over the country for the massive strike against the non implementation of the assurances given to their leaders more than eight months back and also against mass scale contractorisation of regular work in the Govt departments and non-regularisation of the contract workers on regular jobs.

It is to be recalled that the group of ministers including the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Railway minister Suresh Prabhu, Home Minister Rajnath Singh assured the demands of central government employees related to the implementation of the 7th Pay Commission, minimum wages, allowances etc would be setteld within four months. Instead of keeping their promise the government tried to threaten the employees with break in service, suspension and dismissal, dies –non etc. CITU congratulates the employees who went ahead with the strike by defying all such threats.

CITU demands that the government settle the demands of the central government employees through discussions without further delay.

CITU assures the central government employees of its support and solidarity to all their future struggles on their genuine demands.

Issued by
Tapan Sen
General Secretary

1st February 2017

The Union Budget 2017-18 presented by the Union Finance Minister today in Parliament is totally disappointing and deceptive too in many respects.

The finance minister, in his budget speech, boastfully mentioned about doing away with the classification of plan and non-plan expenditure, putting entire expenditure in the same basket. Plan expenditure is meant for capital investment or expenditure for value addition either in the services or the programmes by the concerned sector/ministry, while non-plan pertains to administrative expenses. Doing away with such classification and putting the entire expenditure in the one basket is meant for confusing the people about the real extent of growth orientation.

In the background of severe economic crisis featured by massive sickness and closure of industries, resulting huge joblosses, no concrete measures are seen in the budget proposals for boosting quality employment across the sectors. Finance Minister had to admit about the gloomy situation in private investment in the domestic economy, but did not bother to take concrete measures to remove such gloom by way of increasing public investment and directly intervening to improve purchasing power of the mass of the people and, inter alia, by announcing increase in minimum wage level to at least Rs 18000/- as accepted by the central govt in the 7th Central Pay Commission recommendation. Rather the Govt did the opposite. It reiterated its ongoing exercise for privatization/disinvestment of the public sector units, who are actually keeping the economy afloat through capital investment, and also in public utility services, which would further aggravate the already prevailing income-inequality and also create more gloom in the investment scenario.

Present budget dealt on railways too, which was so long dealt by a separate budget. The Budget spoke volume on importance of Railway in the economy but did little to expand the railway network and to address safety issues in the background of alarming increase in the frequency of railway accidents. Total allocation has been increased by only Rs 10000 crore, both plan and non-plant together, making uncertain the completion of the ongoing railway projects, not to speak of new expansion initiative. On the other hand in the name of making Railway competitive, there is every possibility of further increase the burden on the people for availing railway services on the one hand and increasing privatization of railway services segment by segment.

The Budget also reiterated the continuity of its policy of disinvestment and privatization of public sector units through various route including through Exchange Trading Fund, on the one hand and closure of the sick and loss-making PSUs, even those potentially viable, on the other. This is utterly condemnable.

Although some marginal increases are made in the allocations of various central schemes like ICDS, Mid-day-meal, ASHA etc, the long pending issue of increasing the wages of scheme workers has been kept totally ignored by the Govt totally ignoring the unanimous recommendation of Indian Labour Conference. CITU denounces such arrogance.

The Finance Minister had to admit in his budget speech the reality of tax-theft by corporate and business world. He stated that “we can conclude that we are largely a non-compliant society”. But did nothing to recover the huge accumulated direct tax dues to the tune of Rs 6.59 lakh crores as per the Receipt Budget (Annex-10) presented by him. The Minister admitted on record that out of this accumulated figure, for Rs 81406 crore dues there is no dispute pending. But even that amount has not been recovered. Therefore all tall talks of transparency and tax-compliance by the Minister is a deceptive ploy to confuse people and camouflage the tax-thieves-administration nexus.

The Finance Minister spoke a lot in giving relief to the NPA-striken banks in respect of their tax liability. But maintained stoic silence in recovering the NPAs from their most favoured corporate defaulters. But the Economic Survey has brought the cat out of the bag and did not mince words in prescribing “burden sharing and even forgiving some burden on the private sector” to be done by the banks and the Govt. In essence, the entire exercise is to defend the interests of only those pilfering the national exchequer through tax-default and the banking system through loan-default, in the private corporate community.

The Finance Minister boasted about demonetisation drive as an effective measure in “eliminating corruption, black money, counterfeit currency and terror funding”. The integrity and transparency demand that the Minister should have given an account of as to how much black money could be recovered since 8th November 2016, so also on the counterfeit currency and terror funding. But no such account has been given in the budget. Rather the fact that 98 per cent of the demonetized currency has already entered into the banking system by December end clearly exposes the reality that whatever black money was there has already been allowed to be made white and nobody knows whether and to what extent the counterfeit notes got legitimized. Only mass of the people, the farmers, workers, self-employeds and small traders are made to suffer through crop-loss, wage loss, job loss and loss of livelihood. And digitization agencies like Paytm. Jeo and many others are the gainers with captive lucrative business opportunities. Question arises, the Govt for whom ?

Similar deceptive posture by Minister in the budget speech is seen when he spoke about “protecting labour rights” and referred to at the same breath the very same retrograde proposals already made by the Govt for changes in all basic labour laws; said proposals on labour-law-reforms are designed to push away majority of labour force in the country out of the purview and protection of all labour laws and to impose conditions of slavery on them. If this is not deception, then what else ?

CITU denounces such deceptive approach of the Govt towards interest and rights of the workers as demonstrated through Union Budget 2017-18 and calls upon working people to oppose and protest countrywide.

Issued by
(TAPAN SEN)
General Secretary

9th December 2016

The Centre of Indian Trade Unions expresses its anguish over the retrograde decision of the Narendra Modi Govt to reduce the import duty on wheat nil as an open-ended measure and condemns such anti-farmer decision.
The decision has come at a time when the country witnessed a better monsoon and expects increase in production of wheat, which happens to be major product engaging a big section of our country’s farmers; also global price of wheat is witnessing decline.
Such measure of making wheat import duty free will open the floodgate of wheat import in our country to benefit the agro-MNCs in the background of depressed global whet price; this is going to be disastrous for the country’s agricultural sector as a whole affecting our farmers and agricultural workers in a big way.
CITU demands upon the Govt to withdraw the notification making wheat import duty free and calls upon the workers and toiling people to raise their voice of protest and opposition to such anti-farmenr, anti-people disastrous decision of the Govt

Issued by
( TAPAN SEN )
General Secretary

The fifteenth national conference of CITU that concluded in Puri, Odisha on 30th November, gave a clarion call to build up more unity among all sections of workers and other toiling people to strengthen the struggle against the anti-worker, anti-people policies of the government at the centre.

The conference called upon all affiliated unions to organise the following countrywide movement:

• 22nd December 2016: Countrywide demonstrations of contract, casual workers along with the regular workers demanding implementation of same wage and benefits for same and similar jobs in various sectors. This will mark the beginning of a continuous movements and struggle on this issue on which the Supreme Court has also given a Judgment recently.
• · 19th January 2017: Joint rallies of workers, peasants and agricultural workers expressing support and solidarity to the demands of the peasants and agricultural Workers. This day marks the 35th year of the historic countrywide strike of the trade unions on 19th January 1982, in which the charter of demands included the demands of all sections of toiling masses. Ten persons including workers and agricultural workers were shot dead by police in various states on that day.
• · 20th January 2017: Country wide strike of all scheme workers in the country along with demonstrations at various centres on 20th January 2017 demanding that the scheme workers be given the status of workers instead of being treated as volunteers and be given minimum wages and social security benefits including pension as was recommended by the 45th Indian Labour Conference.

The inaugural session of the conference, on 26th November was addressed by national leaders of other central trade union including those from INTUC, AITUC, AIUTUC, AICCTU, UTUC and LPF. Leaders of different federations of employees and of All India Kisan Sabha, All India Agricultural Workers’ Union, All India Democratic Women’s Association, Democratic Youth Federation of India and Students Federation of India also addressed the delegates.

2023 delegates including 447 women delegates from 24 states and representing all public, private organised and unorganised sectors and various sections of scheme workers attended the conference. These delegates were elected in their respective state conferences held prior to the all India conference.

The conference discussed all important issues confronting the workers, the policies of the central and state governments, including demonetisation, the attacks on the fundamental rights of workers, social injustices and the divisive attempts of communalism.

The conference also had detailed discussion on the necessary measures to be taken to strengthen CITU as a strong country wide organisation.

Special discussions were held on impacts of globalisation, on communalism and on building untied movements of workers, peasants and agricultural workers.

New Leadership
The Conference unanimously elected Dr. K. Hemalata as President, Tapan Sen as General Secretary and M.L. Malkotia as Treasurer. Sixteen Vice Presidents including the outgoing President A.K. Padmanabhan and 16 Secretaries were elected. These 35 comrades will from the Secretariat where six are new inductions. They are M.L. Malkotia (Delhi), Dr. K.L. Karad (Maharashtra), Baby Rani (Andhra Pradesh), K. Chandran Pillai (Kerala), Meenakshi Sundaram (Karnataka), and Usha Rani (President of All India Federation of Anganwadi Workers and Helpers).

The Conference also elected a 460 member General Council including the Secretariat members which in turn elected a 160 member Working Committee.

Issued by
A R Sindhu

23.11.2016

The 15th All India Conference of Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) is being held in Puri, Odisha from 26th November to 30th November. The 14th Conference was held in Kannur, Kerala in April 2013.
2000 delegates including nearly 400 women elected from the State Conferences, in proportion to the membership in state, representing various sectors will attend the Conference.
The Conference is being held near Yatrika, close to the Sea beach in Puri.
The venue for the delegate conference is being named after Com. Samar Mukherji and the Conference hall is named after Com. R Umanath. Both of these veteran leaders of CITU passed away after the last conference.

Inaugural session
Inaugural Session of the Conference will begin at 10 AM with the hoisting of the CITU flag at the venue.

Conference will be inaugurated by A.K. Padmanabhan, President, CITU. The inaugural session will be addressed by Leaders of other Central Trade Unions. They include Dr. G. Sanjeeva Reddy, President INTUC, Ramender Kumar, President AITUC, Jogendranath Tripathi (HMS), Rajiv Dimri (AICCTU), Sankar Saha (AIUTUC), K.K. Panigrahi (LPF), Devarajan (TUCC), Ashok Ghosh (UTUC) and Monali Shah (SEWA).
The Conference is also being attended by a Delegation from World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) led by Divanitton Pereira, Member of the Secretariat of WFTU. CITU is an affiliate of the WFTU.

Mass Rally

A massive procession will begin from the Puri Railway station area by 12 noon on 26th and will culminate in a Mass Rally near Gundicha Mandir. The venue of the rally is named after K.L. Bajaj and S. Prasannakumar who were office bearers elected in the last Conference.
The Rally will be addressed by the leaders of CITU and also of the Reception Committee of the Conference.

Delegate Session
The delegate session will start from 6 PM on 26th and will conclude by 2 PM on 30th.

The report for the Conference will be presented by Tapan Sen, General Secretary and the Accounts will be submitted Ranjana Nirula, Treasurer.
The discussions on the Reports will start from 27th morning and will continue upto 28th evening. The discussions will cover various issues, confronting the workers, the struggles conducted during the last 3 years, future programmes and also about the organizational tasks of CITU.
On 29th, the delegates will be formed into 3 Commissions to discuss on Communalism, Worker-Peasant Unity and Impact of Neo-liberalism on the working people.

Concluding Session
In the Concluding Session on 30th November, General Secretary will sum-up the discussions before the reports are adopted.

The new leadership for the next three years will be elected by the delegates.
Conference will conclude by 2 PM on that day.

Seminars
The Reception Committee under the Chairmanship of Jagannath Patnaik, former President, Bar Council of India has been functioning for the last six months. State wide campaigns have been conducted. Seventeen Seminars on various important subjects have been held in different parts of the state and were addressed by various Academicians, Experts and leaders of various Trade Unions.

Three more Seminars on Agrarian Crisis and Migration, Industrial Development of Odisha, and on Tribal issues will be held on 27th to 29th at a separate venue.
Cultural programmes will be held in the Beach area in the evenings of 26th to 29th November. The venue for this, is named after veteran leader of CITU from United Andhra Pradesh Com. Parasa Sathya Narayana.

Issued By:-
(Tapan Sen)
General Secretary

29-09-2016

The 11th Convention of All India Co-ordination Committee of Working Women (CITU) is being held at Arati Dasgupta Nagar, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh for two days, i.e., on 29th and 30th of September 2016. The venue of the Convention is named after Com Arati Dasgupta, who was one of the prominent leaders of the working class movement in West Bengal. The Convention started with the flag hoisting by Com Neelima Moita, Working Committee Member of CITU.

The presidium consisting of Comrades Ranjana Nirula (Centre), Dhanalakshmi (Andhra Pradesh), Manisha Chakraborty (West Bengal), Yamuna Gaonkar (Karnataka), V C Karthyayani (Kerala), Ida Helen (Tamil Nadu), Jaya Burman (Tripura) and Rama (Telengana) conducted the proceedings of the Convention. Sri K S Lakshmana Rao, former MLC and Chairman of the Reception Committee welcomed the participants to this 11th Convention. Com.M Girija moved the Condolence resolution.

 Com.Tapan Sen, General Secretary of CITU inaugurated the Convention. In his inaugural address, he said that this Convention is a part of the organisational exercise that precedes the All India Conference of CITU that is going to be held at Puri in the month of November 2016. He also said that the report that is going to be adopted by this Convention is going to be a part of the General Secretary’s Report to be submitted in that conference. He drew the attention of the participants to the attacks that are being unleashed by the present day Modi led Central Government. He called upon the delegates to involve themselves in mobilising the workers of the country, especially the women workers against the attacks that are being unleashed by the implementation of anti-people, anti-working class policies of the Central and State Governments.

Com Hemalata, Convenor of the All India Co-ordination Committee of Working Women (CITU) placed the Report. The delegates from various States of the country are going to deliberate today and tomorrow on the report submitted.

Around 200 delegates from 14 States are participating in this Convention. Women comrades, who are the office bearers in various tiers of the CITU and women workers who day in and day out face the brunt of the anti worker policies of the rulers are participating in this Convention as delegates. Delegates from fraternal organisations viz., Insurance, Bank, Medical Representatives, Central and State Government employees are also participating in the Convention.

The conference is going to conclude tomorrow after chalking out the future course of action to fight against the ill effects of the neo-liberal policies and to strengthen the Indian Working Class movement.

HEMALATA
CONVENOR, AICCWW (CITU)