CITU calls May 20 strike over labour codes

The new labor codes are an assault on the rights of the workers, and the Joint Platform for Trade Unions will continue to protest against them, CITU general secretary Tapan Sen said on Thursday.

As Labour Day was observed on Thursday, the leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) expressed concern that several states were incorporating the new codes into their laws.

He said the Centre of Indian Trade Union (CITU), a central trade union affiliated with the CPI(M), has called for a strike on May 20 to protest the labor codes and other issues. He asserted that this would be the beginning of a new resistance to the new codes.

“We could stall the implementation of the new labor codes for the last five years; there were numerous strikes, general strikes, and sectoral actions, and they could not notify the code. Now, they are processing it with different state governments, and they had planned to notify them on the 1st of April. Somehow, they could not notify them,” Sen told PTI.

The four labor codes passed by Parliament replace 29 existing labor laws. These codes regulate wages, industrial relations, social security, occupational safety, health, and working conditions.

Sen said numerous mechanisms have been designed by the government to surpass labor laws.

"They are making numerous administrative mechanisms by which they are curbing even the rights which are available to the worker. They are incentivizing the employers to violate the laws by way of decriminalizing those offenses. They will pay some fine and get out of this,” he said.

He said representatives of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) met with trade unions on April 29 to discuss a proposal to reduce the penalty charges applicable to defaulters of employee provident fund contributions.

“The defaulters are being promoted this way... All the trade unions have opposed it, saying it is legalizing the violation of the law. They are decriminalizing the offenses and reducing the penalty, thereby legalizing or legitimizing the violations. So, in that kind of situation, the workers have no other right,” he said.

"The struggle was unleashed throughout the globe, and for defined working hours, sacrifices were made. Ultimately, the eight-hour workday was internationally recognized. So, when those rights are being thought to be taken away, the workers' strategy is to defy that, resist that process, and assert those rights,” he said.

He also alleged that laws are being misused to target those involved in protests and agitations against the union government.

“The collective rights of workers are being sought to be curtailed. Now, collective agitation is being charged as organized crime under the Bharatiya Naya Samhita section 111, and leaders have been put in jail,” he said.

According to CPI(M) leaders, two trade union leaders in Uttar Pradesh and one in Jammu and Kashmir were arrested under this section.