THE historic juncture in which the 16th all India conference of CITU began on January 23 in Chennai, was ringing loud and clear. In the backdrop of breathless mounting of attacks on the lives and livelihood of the toiling people and on their hard-won rights for collective bargaining on the one hand, and on the other, the building resistance all across the country to fight back these attacks, specially the magnificent All India General Strike held just two weeks back – the challenges before the conference are clear and grave.

THE joint trade union movement of India has given a call for country wide general strike on January 8, 2020. This will be the nineteenth strike called by the joint trade union movement since the formal introduction of neoliberal policies in our country.The sweep, the coverage of issues and the spectrum of participation in successive strikes have been continuously widening. Workers who are not members of any central trade unions have also been participating in the strikes.

THE Industrial Relations Code, 2019 has been introduced in Lok Sabha in the ongoing session. It seeks to replace three important labour laws – the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947; the Trade Unions Act, 1926; and the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946. The BJP government, in its first tenure itself, mooted this bill, and uploaded it on the labour ministry’s website, in April 2015. The draft was then circulated among the central trade unions in October.

THIRTY thousand anganwadi workers from all over Karnataka, gathered at Tumkur on December 10 for a padayatra to Bangalore. They were prevented by hundreds of policemen deployed. But anganwadi workers refused to budge and stayed at the Glass House Maidan and other maidans of Tumkur where they had gathered.  They stayed over the night on December 10th in the maidans against the police demand to disperse, and cooked for dinner.

WORKERS of public sector oil and petroleum companies, BPCL, HPCL and ONGC (MRPL) observed a nationwide strike on November 28, opposing Modi government’s suicidal move to completely sell out BPCL to private companies. The united strike was led successfully by the leadership of all the three national federations of oil and petroleum sector workers.