New Delhi: The Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU), All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), and All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU) held a joint protest across the nation on Friday against Budget, 2022. The call was given as a part of preparations for the All India General Strike scheduled on March 28 and 29. The Left-wing unions have called the budget pro-corporate, anti-people, and anti-worker. The trade unions also gathered support from the joint platform of farmer unions Samyukt Kisan Morcha for their movement.
"Looking at the experiences of past movements, we have already started the practice. During the entire farmers' movement, we rendered our full support to the farmers. After the three farm laws were repealed and farmers' protests concluded, the next one was a general strike which has been called to press our demands Samyukt Kisan Morcha has also extended support to our strike call and farmer unions will also participate in the preparation to make the general strike successful. We have started this process to convey a message and in the meanwhile, the government presented this budget so this was also included in the list of issues," said Tapan Sen, General Secretary of CITU.
The central trade union has been expressing their disappointment over the recent budget and apart from the budget, there are a host of issues on which the unions have been holding demonstrations on a regular basis. The symbolic protest call on Friday as per the leader was only a part of the preparation for the All India General Strike call. Talking about the issues on which trade unions are mobilizing support, Tapan Sen said that the demand to repeal the four Labour Codes is on their prime agenda.
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"The general strike call is the second phase of the movement against the anti-national and anti-people economic policy of this government. We have 12-point demand and the main issues are labor codes, pending demands of farmers, complete stoppage of privatization, and one exercise even more dangerous is the national monetization pipeline that is gifting out the national assets to corporates without any cost," he said.
The charter of demands also includes cash compensation and free ration for pandemic-hit people.
