Buddhadeb comes to IT’s rescue, vows to protect BPOs from Citu attack

KOLKATA: West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Tuesday appeared headed for a confrontation with his party’s labour union when he declared his resolve to thwart any attempt by unions to block work in IT units on December 14.

The chief minister’s tough message came after Citu bosses managed to scuttle the state government’s plans to notify IT as an essential service. “The government will not tolerate any attempt at picketing or forceful implementation of the strike,” the chief minister told reporters in Kolkata. “As far as I know, no one in the IT sector will join the strike. There will be no picketing by outsiders.” The CM also said that he would help the IT companies’ efforts to bring employees to their respective firms on the day of the general strike.

“I had discussions with IT companies on the transportation arrangements of their employees. The arrangements will be made by the government,” the chief minister said. In normal circumstances, such statements could have invited barbs of being ‘reactionary’ and ’anti-working class’. But with the central unit of the party deciding to go along with the economic paradigm of Mr Bhattacharjee, unions have spared him the treatment that it usually metes out to anti-strike sections. Left leaders routinely attack members of the higher judiciary for ruling against strikes.

State Citu president Shyamal Chakraborty claimed that the decision not to exempt the IT sector from the strike would not send any wrong signals to investors. Mr Chalkraborty chaired the meeting that announced the formation of the IT services association, the first such union in the IT sector, on November 14. “Our decision will not send any wrong signal, rather those who are opposing the Tata Motors’ project are sending wrong signals,” he said in a reference to Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee’s protest over Singur.

He said that there would not be a forcible enforcement of the strike in the IT sector. When asked whether public transport would be allowed to run on the strike day enabling IT workers to attend work, he said, “If workers of public transport join the strike, then how will it run?”