Have you ever observed a banyan tree at close quarters? Majestic it stands, with its canopy of branches, from which hundreds of tender roots droop down as if to kiss the earth. The deeper and wider the branches spread, the mother trunk stands more graciously, defying age. Like this giant tree, with its series of new trunks, enclosing a cavernous space and sheltering people beneath, stands the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), the mother of all central trade unions in India.

History

The first Central Trade Union Organisation was formed in

India on 31 October 1920 by the Indian National Congress (INC). The INC, the central organ of the Independence movement, formed the AITUC to give India representation at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) of the League of Nations.

The AITUC’s chronicle is coterminous with the history of organised labour movement in

India. From its inception, the AITUC has played a major role in India’s freedom struggle. Besides the need for representation at the ILO, there were innumerable other factors that brought about its formation.

The imperialist rulers primarily intended to develop

India as an agricultural country, providing raw material to the British and, later, as a flourishing market for the finished products. These efforts resulted in the near total destruction of the Indian manufacturing and handicraft industries. Artisans and craftsmen were alienated from their means of production and market; and when agriculture failed, poverty gripped the Indian working classes. Famine took away around 20 million lives during the period 1825-1900.

The Santhal rebellion was a people’s protest; it was followed by the Indigo revolt and

Deccan riots, which were manifestations of the peoples’ rebellion. In 1857, when India’s first war of Independence did not achieve the goal of the end of colonialism, the foreign rulers opened India’s market to British goods. Subsequently, railway lines and telegraphs were set up in India, coal mines and plantations were developed, cotton textiles and jute mills were established. This, in due course, brought in a new class of wage labourers and brought about the rise of Indian capitalists. According to the industrial census of 1921, around 2.6 million workers were employed in establishments that employed 10 or more workers.

Principles or Reasons for Formation

The hardships those workers faced were unbearable. “In those days, it was jungle law that prevailed. There was no limit on hours of work. Men, women and children were herded in these dens of capital to work from 12 to 16, 18 and even 23 hours of work per day. There was no Sunday holiday, no starting and closing time. Children of five and six years of age worked full time as grown ups. And when died or were maimed in the machines, there was no value for their life or limb.� (Bardhan A.B. Outline History of All

India Trade Union Congress. AITUC, 1997).

The hardships the workers faced resulted in the formation of many small organisations. These tried to unitedly protest against the onslaught on them, by adopting different methods. Caste and village associations gave birth to stronger organisations, which helped workers to raise their voices against atrocities. The mills of

Bombay witnessed a slew of strike actions between 1905 and 1909 against exploitative working conditions; their struggles were also against British imperialism. By January 1919, around 1,25,000 workers were out on strike and the first half of 1920 witnessed about 200 strikes, involving nearly 15 lakh workers. When the Prince of Wales visited Bombay, in November 1921, the workers of Bombay greeted him by going on strike and staging demonstrations.

Meanwhile, the

League of Nations, under the provisions of Article 389 and 412 of the League of Nations Conventions, planned to set up the ILO. The articles insist that workers’ representation to it should be nominated by the government, in agreement with the trade union organisations with majority representation. For the ILO Conference of October 1919, the government of India nominated N.M. Joshi as the workers’ delegate from India and B.P. Wadia as the Advisor. Since the decision by the government was unilateral, resentment was raised by leaders of various workers’ organisations. To reach a mutual consensus, N.M. Joshi in a press statement suggested the convening of an all India meeting. On 16 July 1920, a convention was held, which decided to hold an All India Trade Union Congress in Mumbai.  It was in such a context that the foundation conference of the AITUC took place. The first session met on 31 October 1920 in Bombay Empire Theatre under the chairmanship of Lala Lajpat Rai. The conference gave birth to the AITUC.

Key actors

Besides 101 delegates and 10,000 workers from all over

India, the first conference of the AITUC was attended by political leaders holding various ideologies. Leaders such as Lala Lajpat Rai, Subhash Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru, Maniben Kara, V.V. Giri, S.A. Dange, Inderjit Gupta, Surendranath Banerjee participated and contributed to the formation of the AITUC. Lala Lajpat Rai was elected the first president of AITUC and V.M. Pawar its General Secretary. In the meeting of the first Executive Committee, Diwan Chaman Lal replaced V.M. Pawar as General Secretary.

Spread

In the first session of the conference, 64 unions with a membership of 1,40,854 workers got affiliated to the AITUC and 43 other unions expressed their sympathy and support to it. Unions that maintained a distance from the central trade union were the unions of government employees. At present, the claimed membership of AITUC as per the 2002 provisional results of the trade union verification is 46,12,457, and the verified union membership 33,42,213. The detailed, state-wise break-up is given in the table below.

S.No	States	Unions Claimed	Membership Claimed	Unions verified	Membership verified
1	Andaman & Nichobar	6	1699	0	0
2	Andhra Pradesh	289	590138	216	529083
3	Arunachal Pradesh	0	0	0	0
4	Assam	49	39445	28	31827
5	Bihar	89	1122909	63	783102
6	Chandigarh	0	0	0	0
7	Chhatisgarh	27	38595	17	32304
8	Dadra & Nagar Haveli	0	0	0	0
9	Daman & diu	0	0	0	0
10	Delhi	55	71514	27	44029
11	Gujarat	40	25909	32	15985
12	Goa	12	34076	10	33100
13	Haryana	52	43672	35	35157
14	Himachal	27	27997	19	24321
15	Jammu & Kashmir	16	61639	7	1684
16	Jharkhand	34	184871	25	116974
17	Karnataka	129	137382	20	19451
18	Kerala	397	341872	140	216885
19	Lakshdeep	0	0	0	0
20	Maharashtra	49	134336	31	100494
21	Madhya Pradesh	50	60781	38	51442
22	Manipur	34	36963	1	135
23	Meghalaya	6	5653	3	900
24	Mizoram	0	0	0	0
25	Nagaland	0	0	0	0
26	Orissa	85	168124	54	143064
27	Punjab	97	259844	68	182740
28	Pondicherry	21	1793	14	1179
29	Rajasthan	70	187023	56	179892
30	Sikkim	0	0	0	0
31	Tamil Nadu	303	353893	217	172517
32	Tripura	1	77	1	39
33	Uttar Pradesh	89	61783	57	44345
34	Uttaranchal	16	9950	8	5199
35	West Bengal	229	610519	208	576365
	Total	2272	Bibliography Author Name: Sindhu Menon Title of the Article: AITUC: The Mother of All CTUOs Name of the Journal: Labour File Volume & Issue: 5 , 2 Year of Publication: 2007 Month of Publication: January - April Page numbers in Printed version: Labour File, Vol.5-No.1&2, Trade Union Verification: All About Numbers (Profile - AITUC: The Mother of All CTUOs - pp 88 - 95) Weblink : https://www.labourfile.com:443/section-detail.php?aid=416 Bibliography Author Name: Sindhu Menon, Title of the Article: AITUC: The Mother of All CTUOs, Name of the Journal: Labour File, Volume & Issue: 5 , 2, Year of Publication: 2007, Month of Publication: January - April, Page numbers in Printed version: Labour File, Vol.5-No.1&2, Trade Union Verification: All About Numbers (Profile - AITUC: The Mother of All CTUOs - pp 88 - 95), Weblink : https://www.labourfile.com:443/section-detail.php?aid=416 Download PDFversion Print Keywords AITUC: The Mother of All CTUOs, trade unions, verification of trade union memberships Current Labour News Two day Nationwide General Strike of Workers on 28... Labour File News Service More than 20 crore workers, employees and the rura... Labour File News Service Declaration of the Joint Front of Central Trade Un... Labour File News Service Indian and Pakistani Fishermen: Bearing the Brunt ... Manan Kumar Recent Issues Vol. 9, Issue 2 Previous Issues Vol. 8, Issue 3 Vol. 6, Issue 6 Vol. 6, Issue 5 Post Your Comments To Post Comment Please Login Comments No Comment Found Please provide your email id. We will notify when new Issues will come. Go Useful Links Home About Us Editorial Donate Contact us Contact Us The Information and Feature Trust, Lakshmi, (Kayyadam), Thondayad, Cheverambalam (PO), Calicut , KERALA - 673017 Phone:+91 - 9526577902 Website: www.labourfile.com Email: edit@labourfile.com Email: sindhumenon@labourfile.com 2024 © All Rights Reserved. Website Design by Kash Web Tech