Unorganised Sector Workers’ Bill Cleared

The Group of Ministers has cleared the Unorganised Sector Workers’ Bill, one of the pro-labour recommendations made by the Second National Commission on Labour. The draft Bill suggests welfare schemes for the unorganised sector workers, including Universal Health Insurance Schemes under which each worker and his/her family would receive a medical cover Rs 30,000 annually. It also talks about an insurance cover of Rs 100,000 and Rs 500 would be given as old- age pension for those who have crossed 60. Another feature of the Bill is the provision of facilitation centres for registration of workers.

The central trade unions have raised apprehensions about the Bill. Though the government claims that the Bill was discussed with the trade unions, the fact is it was not circulated even in the recently concluded ILC. In fact, the trade unions were kept in dark about the Bill. In this context, their apprehensions on the clearance of the Bill, is valid.

West Bengal Tea Trade Unions Plan to
Meet Labour Minister

To air the grievances of the workers of the tea industry, tea trade union leaders from West Bengal will meet the Labour Minister in New Delhi in February 2004. The union leaders have also decided to launch a massive campaign throughout the state to create awareness on the condition of the tea workers. The resolution to this effect was passed in a Convention of tea plantation workers in Siliguri on 6 December 2003 by the UTUC.

Around 1,200 workers and trade union activists from the tea industry attended the convention. Major trade unions AITUC, INTUC and AICCTU took part in the Convention addressed by regional trade unions leaders like Chitta Dey, the convener of Coordination Committee of all the trade unions and Kanu Sanyal. Mahbubur Rahman Moznu, International Secretary, Bangladesh Trade Union Centre and J John Executive Director of Centre for Education and Communication addressed the participants on the crisis faced by the tea workers.

The Convention unanimously passed resolutions demanding 1) Relief to the tea workers from both central and state governments; 2) Action from the government like establishing criminal liability against planters violating statutory provisions of payment of wage, Provident Fund and gratuity and a recovery procedure from defaulting planters; 3) Tea board should look into the issues of diminishing productivity due to increasing age of tea bushes; 4) Government should ensure that there is no cartelisation in tea auctions; 5) Closed tea plantations should immediately re-start, in case they fail to do so, stringent measures should be taken against the management.

Knotting the Threads of Strike

Production and exports in the jute industry in India may come to a standstill as 15 trade unions in the industry have decided to go on an indefinite strike from 29 December 2003. Strike notices were issued on 1 December. The major demands of the unions are:

1.      The implementation of the tripartite agreement signed in 2002 with revision

2.      To specify the grades and scales

3.      Decentralization of the NJMC mills

4.      Dilution of the Jute Packaging Materials Act.

5.      Dearness Allowance to be paid with retrospective effect from February 2002

6.       Bonus and flexible bonus 2002-2003

Relief Committee for Distressed Tea Workers Formed

A committee to provide immediate relief to the tea workers of the closed tea plantations in West Bengal has been formed under the leadership of Fr. Oswald Xalxo of CARITAS, India, and the Society of Jesuits. Due to the closure and abandonment, starvation-related deaths and suicides were increasing in the tea gardens of West Bengal. The committee was formed on the request of Centre for Education and Communication, a New Delhi-based labour research and resource centre. The UTUC and CEC had undertaken a fact-finding visit to the crisis ridden tea estates in West Bengal.

Sunil Sengupta, the all India General Secretary of UTUC, has given an appeal to all the trade unions in West Bengal tea industry to come together and join the relief efforts of the committee.