Trade unions are gearing up for a face off with the Government on proposed amendments to key labour laws and hiking FDI in defence, railways and insurance. 

To begin with, all central trade unions, including the BJP-backed Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), will hold a national protest convention in the first week of September.

The unions, which met here on Thursday, unanimously condemned the Narendra Modi Government’s ‘unilateral’ move to amend labour laws and also denounced the move to hike foreign direct investment in defence, insurance and railways, as well as disinvestment in the central public sector undertakings.

The meeting, presided by G Sanjeeva Reddy of INTUC, was attended by Brijesh Upadhyaya, General Secretary, BMS, Tapan Sen, General Secretary, CITU, Gurudas Dasgupta, General Secretary, AITUC, and Harbajan Singh Sidhu, General Secretary, HMS. 

In a joint statement, the unions also opposed the “dangerously anti-labour contents” of the amendments (already legislated by Rajasthan Government and moved in Parliament by the Modi Government).

“In essence, all moves for amendments in the labour laws, both by the Central Government and the Government in Rajasthan, are aimed at empowering employers to retrench/lay off workers or declare closure/shut-down at will and also resort to mass scale contractorisation,” said the joint statement.

The unions fear these moves will push out over 70 per cent of the industrial establishments in the country and their workers from the purview of almost all labour laws, thereby allowing employers a free hand to further squeeze and exploit workers.

“While the role of the Rajasthan Government was condemned for their initiation in the matter, it is understood that things are happening with the approval from the Narendra Modi Government at the Centre,” said Sen.

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