Trade unions’ mixed response to the Budget

Central trade unions are divided over the impact of the Union Budget. While RSS-affiliate Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh has hailed the Budget, the All India Trade Union Congress said the Budget is aimed at favouring corporates and is against the working population. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented her maiden Budget in Parliament on Friday.

“The budget is out to favour corporates of Indian and foreign brand. Huge concessions, like tax holidays, several incentives, reduced procedures have been announced in the name of ease of doing business,” AITUC said in a statement.

“Every field of economic activity has been thrown open to private capital whether foreign or indigenous-from space, energy, finance, transport, retail trade, health education and so on,” it said.


According to AITUC, the budget is full of rhetoric and slogans, means another round of setbacks to working people and farmers, as it is devoid of any commitment and budget allocation to free them of indebtedness. “On the whole, the budget, as expected, is pro-corporate and anti-working people,” it said.

Meanwhile, BMS hailed the budget as supplementary or incremental budget with very little scope for much new proposal. “Most of the Budget proposals are already declared ones,” BMS said.

“With the mention of labour codes in the Budget, government has assured that the spirit of synergy will be displayed while pushing forward the labour codes by consulting with trade unions and considering workers’ concerns,” CK Saji Narayanan, president, BMS said.

However, BMS has urged that certain proposals of the Budget needs to be discussed with trade unions, which representing the majority stakeholders affected, before being implemented.

These include the FDI policy and its impact on the economy, PPP and Disinvestment plans on public sector enterprises, consolidation of PSU banks and recurrent increase in petrol or diesel price.