More than 2,000 workers were thrown to the streets in July when the Reliance Spinning Mills in Biratnagar, the first industrial city in Nepal, was burned down by the Maoists. Another 10,000 people, who were dependent on these workers, are fighting for their survival. Closure of factories has been high in the past two months leaving a trail of misery among the workers. From the second week of July, several tea estates were forced to close both the factory work and work in the plantation field. More than 15,000 workers with a dependent population of nearly 75,000 are facing hunger after they being deprived of their daily wages. Maoists set fire to the Jyoti Spinning Mills in the eastern part of the country leading to loss of work for more than 1,000 workers. The Maoists have issued threats to a number of enterprises to close down. Uni Lever Pvt. Ltd. is another company, which has just down shutters. In the process, more than 900 workers lost their livelihood options. Last year, similar threats had forced the closure of 47 big enterprises for more than a month.

Joint protests by trade unions and the efforts of civil society, the government of the time and human rights activists had then compelled the Maoists to withdraw their pressure to the employers so that the factories could be reopened. But today, there is no hope for the workers with an autocratic government in place. It is working intensively against the rights of the people and democracy. The royal government is trying to negate every constitutional and democratic norm by exercising undeclared ban on political parties, mass organisations, trade unions and human rights organisations.  The two extremes - one represented by the King and and the other by the Maoists - are going against the entire nation, society, economic activity and the working people, a siutation never witnessed in the history of Nepal.

The Maoists have withdrawn their threats to close down tea estates after GEFONT and other unions in association with the media and human rights activists stepped up their pressure. There is, however, a limit to the activities of this coalition, especially when the democracy has been trampled upon in the country.