Workers unite to say, ‘We are its owners, India is ours.’

The 11th National Conference of the All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), held February 24-26, brought workers from a range of sectors together. They included sanitation workers, construction workers, domestic workers, miners, street vendors, scheme workers, gig workers and others from throughout India.

The conference, which drew thousands of organized and unorganized workers to Talkatora Stadium in Delhi, was the largest of its kind in over a decade. A major theme was “Hum Hain Iske Malik, Hindustan Hamara” (We are its owners, India is ours).

The conference call said: “The brutal exploitation and repression of the working class has reached its peak now under the [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi-led [right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party] regime in the last 11 years. The working class in India today is facing the worst ever attack on their lives, livelihoods and rights with record unemployment and price rise coupled with massive retrenchment, wage cuts, falling wages, withering social security, all-out contractualization, closures, lock-outs, skyrocketing poverty, all-pervading hunger and widening inequality.”

The call ended by saying: “AICCTU calls upon the working class to reclaim all our rights and to emerge as a bulwark of the democracy and the constitution which are the hallmarks of our country. We appeal to you all to support and contribute in every possible way to make the AICCTU’s 11th all-India conference a great success.” (aicctu.org, Feb. 24)

Leaders of other Indian labor federations addressed the gathering, including All India Trade Union Congress General Secretary Amarjeet Kaur, All India United Trade Union Center General Secretary Ramesh Pareshar, Center of Indian Trade Unions National Secretary K.N. Umesh and Trade Union Coordination Center President Indu Prakash Menon. India has multiple All-India labor federations, most of them tied to various Marxist parties. Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist-Liberation General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya was a featured speaker at the AICCTU conference.

Unions of railway workers, sanitation workers, scheme workers and others had representatives among the keynote speakers.

Scheme workers in India, about 95% of them women, perform work such as providing health care and distributing meals to schoolchildren. Yet they are not considered workers and earn below the minimum wage. As AICCTU explains: “Scheme workers struggle to wriggle themselves out of the status of ‘forced volunteers’ and demand the status of government employees with associated rights, benefits and working conditions.” (aicctu.org)

A speech by World Federation of Trade Unions Honorary President and former Secretary General George Mavrikos, who was denied a visa by the Indian government, was read to conference attendees. Mavrikos made the point of voicing support for the Palestinian people. AICCTU’s banner in solidarity with Palestine was ripped down by the police as the conference was getting underway.

The conference took a strong stand against “communalism,” which in India is understood as the ideology that asserts the superiority of one group over another. This includes the anti-Muslim bigotry espoused and practiced by the Modi government.

The conference ended by reaffirming its determination to fight against caste domination and communal hatred and to overthrow the corporate, communal BJP government. To achieve these goals it resolved to build a radical, militant workers movement across the country and work with agricultural workers and farmers.