Intuc gives in to reforms lobby

NEW DELHI: After Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, the Indian National Trade Union Congress has expressed its willingness to support labour reforms. The development augurs well for legislative support for reform laws in the Rajya Sabha where the ruling National Democratic Alliance has to depend on Opposition to get any law passed.
INTUC, the second largest trade union, endorsed reform measures and had initially stayed out of a countrywide protest programme on April 16. “Our stand has been spelt out very clearly in the Labor Commission report unlike the BMS whose change in stand smacks of immaturity as a trade union. We are open to reforms as long as the government sticks to the recommendations in the report and goes through tripartite consultations to evolve a consensus, although the report is not binding. Our representative on the commission, Sanjeeva Reddy, had even told the Prime Minister on June 29 that the BMS was taking a grossly unrealistic position on reforms,� senior INTUC office bearer Chandidas Sinha said.
The BMS and the INTUC were the two major central trade unions represented on the Commission. The Left TUS boycotted it. Given this, the nascent alignment of perception on labour law reforms by these two key trade unions is significant. In a bid to rebuff Left charges that it was a willing handmaiden to the ruling BJP on anti-people reforms, the Congress leadership had, during the winter session, taken the position that it was the original architect of people-friendly reforms.
The developments on the INTUC front comes even as the BMS went a step ahead of its Thursday’s position by pulling out of a July 15 workers’ assembly in Delhi, organised jointly by all central trade unions and meant among other things to take a stand on labour reforms. The BMS is understood to have communicated its decision to back out, on account of its own programme on the same day, to the Left TU leadership inviting their strong ire. “It is clear they are doing this see-saw under some kind of pressure.
The decision to drop out of the programme at this juncture is a very calculated one. How can a trade union just change its position on labor law reforms because the commission has given its report. Even the “upto 300 employees� limit (as IDA amendment) that the report is suggesting for exemption from government permission to units for closure and sacking is too high and has be viewed against the advances in technology.