Centre is making mockery on minimum wages; won’t call of strike: CITU

New Delhi, Aug 31 (KNN) Reiterating that the decision to hold nationwide strike on September 2 would not be called off, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has said that the government’s announcement on minimum wages etc is a mockery and a cruel joke to mislead the workers ahead of the strike.

Tapan Sen, General Secretary of CITU has said in an official statement that the statement of the Finance Minister that the Government has accepted the recommendation of the Minimum Wage Advisory Committee is totally untrue. The Minimum Wage Advisory Committee met on 30th August 2016 at 3 pm and ended inconclusive while all the workers’ representatives reiterated their demand of Rs 18000/-. Such mis-statement by Government is a deliberate ploy to mislead and confuse the workers before the strike.

“Government’s offer of a floor level minimum wage of Rs 350/- per day, i.e., Rs 9100/- per month (26 days) is cruel joke by the Government making a posture of accepting the demands of workers. Trade unions reject such a mockery in the name of offer with the contempt it deserves,” he said.

He further stated that releasing previous years’ bonus for the central govt employees is not something about Government’s magnanimity. Centre did so to implement the enhanced ceiling as per the Payment of Bonus Act for them, which they should have done much earlier.

“Now they have released in order to deceptively pose that the Government has been considering so many things. So far as the court cases on implementation of Payment of Bonus Act is concerned, it is the responsibility of the central govt to defend and implement the Act passed by Parliament, for which they cannot claim any special credit,” he added.

He alleged that this NDA Government should better note that it is the BJP Government in Madhya Pradesh; Rajasthan etc have withheld implementation of the Bonus Act for the year 2014-15 on their own citing the High Court Orders in Kerala and Karnataka which were not binding on them. That makes the real intention clear.

Government also stated that they will issue advisory to state governments to ensure registration of trade unions within 45 days. Advisory is not having binding impact. What is required is to make statutory arrangement. But in their proposals on labour reforms, Government has already put so many conditions that would make registering trade union virtually impossible.

In reality, Government’s announcement in the press conference on the charter of demands of the workers is nothing but a hoax and must be rejected outright, CITU said.

This is game to confuse and mislead people just on the eve of strike. Such deceptive and dubious ploy of the Government must be combated through making the 2nd September 2016 a massive success, he added. (KNN Bureau)