Central trade unions to write to PM on charter of demands

NEW DELHI: With the government failing to heed to their charter of demands, all major central trade unions today decided to write to the Prime Minister and threatened to intensify their agitation.


The union representatives who today met the Group of Ministers (GoM) constituted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discuss their demands, said they would wait for a month before charting out their future course of action such as going on strike once again.

"All the 11 central trade unions will write to the Prime Minister tomorrow stating that the spirit shown by him last week at the Indian Labour Conference (ILC) meet was absent in the GoM today," secretary of All India Trade Union Congress D L Sachdeva said.

He and general secretary of Centre of Indian Trade Unions Tapan Sen said no concrete result came of the meeting despite the Prime Minister stating at ILC that there could be "no disagreement" on some issues raised by trade unions during the February general strike.

"The GoM was not prepared for the meeting and said it will workout the financial implication of implementing the proposal and brief the Prime Minister. They said they would call us back within a month," Sachdeva said.

The GoM comprises Defence Minister A K Antony, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and Labour and Employment Minister Mallikarjun Kharge.

Sen said the government continued to maintain the same position which it had prior to the general strike, called on February 20 and 21.

The GoM was set up following the general strike called by the union demanding strict enforcement of labour laws, measures for employment generation and price rise, stoppage of disinvestment in central and state PSUs and removal of ceiling on bonus and provident fund and universal social security cover.

The charter of demands also included abolition of contractual employment and a minimum wage of Rs 10,000, but no resolution was in sight on the issues.

Raising hopes of the unions, Singh had announced at the ILC government's plans for a universal social security cover for workers both in organised and unorganised sector as demanded during the general strike and creation of a national social security fund besides fixing a national floor-level minimum wage and a minimum pension of Rs 1000 per month.