The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) came into being when the Communist Party of India split in 1964 into the CPI and the CPI (Marxist). This led the CPI(M) to pull its unions from the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) associated with the CPI. A few years ago, the CPI  Marixst-Leninist Liberation floated its own National Trade Union Centre, the All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU).  Due to the split in the Grand Old Congress Party in 1969, the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) lost some of its affiliated unions when Congress (Organisation) got together its unions and floated the National Labour Organsiation (NLO). The Telugu Nadu Trade Union Council (TNTUC) is also a trade union centre, though regional, which is led by Congress people. In West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress of the stormy petrel Mamata Banerji, has its own trade union centre. The Hind Mazdoor Kisan Panchayat (HMKP) was formed because George Fernandes was not made President of the Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS). Instead, the HMS Working Committee elected a Hind Mazdoor Panchayat HMP cadre — Chinnadurai, one of its oldest leaders, its President in 1963 and a distinguished freedom fighter.

If political parties did not own and control the trade unions led by their labour workers, these splits would not have occurred, and much fewer National Trade Union Centres would have existed.

The reason why the oft-repeated sentiment in favour of unity has become a hollow rhetoric is the ambition of the political parties to own and control their trade unions and turn them into state- or national-level entities. These parties do not realise that in doing this, they are, on the one hand, weakening the bargaining capacity of the working class and, on the other, following anti-democratic practices.

The practice of political parties keeping even non-political groups under their wings was started by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik). When the party assumed complete control of the government in Russia, its trade unions became subservient to the state. In no democratic society in Europe, North America or the Pacific, was this practice followed. Trade unions are free from the control of political parties and, therefore, the state. They serve the working class in an admirable fashion. The result is that in most of these countries, there is only one National Trade Union Centre, which is recognised as the true and authentic voice of labour.

In these countries, the model of the Welfare State has succeeded eminently, because it was nurtured by the united National Trade Union Centre of the country concerned. Pollok, the astute, socialist Austrian, theorised in the second decade of the last century that the working class that has become part of the society and can no longer be treated as pariah.

In the early 1930s, in our country, the trade union movement split into three organisations. Although the AITUC, formed in 1920, was becoming a powerful instrument of labour, the Communist Party, founded in 1925, split it and floated its Red Trade Union Congress. G.L. Mehta had his Indian Federation of Labour. However, when the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) was formed in 1934, one of the foremost tasks of its labour leaders was to unite these three into the AITUC. They could achieve this because the CPI, proscribed by the Government of India, decided that its workers would sneak into the Indian National Congress through the CSP. The followers of the eminent revolutionary M.N. Roy had also joined the CSP. Hence, all the groups in the nationalist firmament and the communist tendency accepted the unity proposal as advocated by the leaders of the CSP. At that time, the CSP also had leaders such as Shib Nath Banerji of Calcutta (now Kolkata), who was leading about 50 unions at that time, and R.A. Khedigikar, leader of the Railway employees.

Moreover, that was the period when the freedom struggle entered a crucial phase, after the 1930 Salt Satyagraha and the repression let loose by the imperialist regime in 1932 as a reaction to Gandhi’s defiance in the Second Round Table Conference in London. The leaders of the Congress were veering round to a negotiated settlement with the British government. The Leftists in the Party were unhappy at this prospect and yearned to pressure the Congress leadership against it. Hence, they brought together all kisan workers (farmers) into the All India Kisan Conference (AIKS) in 1936. The birth of the All India Student Federation (AISF) and the Progressive Writers Association was also a denouement of the same ferment. The CSP moved a resolution in the All India Congress Committee (AICC) to amend the Constitution to allow the collective affiliation of local organisations of kisans, workers and others as an element of the same strategy.

An elaborate review of those developments is being made here only to study why the first attempt at trade union unification succeeded. The conclusion is that unless there is ferment, such developments do not generally take place. The AITUC was captured by the CPI in 1942-4 when the ban on it had been lifted when almost all the leaders of the nationalist camp were in jails or in the underground. After all of them came out, they decided to recover their trade unions from the AITUC. Thus, the INTUC came into being. However, when the latter was found to be toeing the line of the Congress government, the leaders of the CSP, Roy’s Radical Democratic Party and a section of the Forward Bloc founded by Subhas Chandra Bose in 1939 joined hands to give birth to the HMS in 1948. Although several top leaders of the erstwhile PSP, the successor of the CSP, drifted to the ruling Congress Party in 1964 and 1971, and some of them were trade unionists, the independent character of the HMS made them to decide to not split it. They included Natwar Shah, Sanat Mehta and A. Subramaniam. Those who joined the SSP also decided on the same course. The HMS suffered a split in 1958 after the split in the PSP occurred. George Fernandes then created the HMP. But, Deven Bose and S.C.C. Anthony Pillai who joined the SSP, remained with the HMS.

The HMS proposed to the AITUC in 1991 that the two should achieve organisational unification. Indrajit Gupta, then General Secretary of the AITUC, was in favour. But some others were afraid that the cadres might shift to the CITU. Hence, they suggested the unity of all three, even when the CITU did not accept it. Another proposal was a confederation of the three in which they would continue to remain separate entities. This effort failed finally in 1997. Later, the HMS broached the subject with the INTUC. How could the latter accept it unless the HMS agreed to come under the tutelage of the Congress Party?

The AITUC and the CITU cannot unify as the CITU does not favour it. The UTUC and the UTUC (Lenin Sarani) also cannot unify because they are controlled by two separate political parties. These parties are the RSP and the Forward Bloc, respectively. Both of them are part of the United Front in West Bengal. Unfortunately, even if two centres merge into one, the durability of such a merger can remain stable only if the leaders are suitably accommodated. For instance, the HMP led by George Fernandes and the HMS unified in 1979 into the HMS. But, as has been mentioned already, a split occurred within three years.