A convention of various Central Trade Unions (CTUs) and federations of workers in the Opposition camp has decided to observe a general strike on May 20 against the Centre’s move to implement the four Labour Codes.
The convention has also decided to work together with farmers’ organisations to organise joint protests against the Narendra Modi government’s agriculture and labour policies.
A declaration adopted at the convention said that in its third term, the Narendra Modi-led NDA government has become atrociously desperate to push through “corporate servile policy machinations” on the toiling populace. “This has resulted in the continuing phenomenon of deepening and widening impoverishment, the spread of hunger and malnutrition below destitution level, skyrocketing unemployment and joblessness together with drastic degeneration of the quality of jobs to inhumane levels. Simultaneously, corporate and big-business profits multiplied to an all time high,” the declaration said.
It said the Centre is furiously overactive in implementing the Labour Codes. “These codes would snatch from workers almost all their workplace rights and entitlements.
The CTUs/Federations take it as a serious challenge to the basic rights of workers relating to defined working conditions, including working hours, minimum wages, social security, etc., and also their collective rights to unionisation, recognition, collective bargaining, agitation, and any form of collective expression of protest, including the right to strike, together with atrocious and vindictive punitive measures against any collective dissent by workers,” it said, adding that the general strike on May 20 is to defeat the implementation of the four Labour Codes.
Published – March 19, 2025 12:49 am IST
