HVK Archives: Another bastion falls - labour unions
Another bastion falls - labour unions - The Indian Express
Editorial
()
3 January 1997
Title : Another bastion falls
Author : Editorial
Publication : The Indian Express
Date : January 3, 1997
The latest official figures of the "verified memberships" of the major
organisations concerned testify to the remarkable transformation of the trade
union scene over the recent years. It is the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS),
a front body of the Bharatiya Janata Party, that tops the list of the
rankings to emanate from the Union Labour Ministry. That the statistics has
predictably been challenged by the piqued rivals of the BMS does not alter
the significance of the fact. Regardless of the merits of the finding, the
point is that the BMS should have emerged so reckonable a force at all, and
should be a serious contender for the status that has for so long been
presumed to be reserved for others. Till not very long ago, the contention
for the position now accorded to the BMS was between the Congress-led Indian
National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) and the Left-headed All-India Trade
Union Congress (AITUC) and the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU),
associated respectively with the CPI and the CPI(M). It is the INTUC, which
till now has been the winner, with the losers attributing the achievement to
official patronage through the years of the Congress in power and to the
allegedly unreliable method of membership verification itself. The Left,
which has been raising the slogan of secret ballot for the purpose and has
successfully included introduction of such a procedure in the Common Minimum
Programme of the United Front Government, has reacted in the same manner to
the statistical revelation But, the grim tone of its criticism of a friendly
government's recognition of the common foe is a give-away.
It is patently the Left that stands to lose most by the changed political
complexion of the labour scene. For, the trade unions have been its main
political weapon, and not popular support, including any proletarian variety,
for an obscure and often obsolete-seeming ideology. The verified membership
of the BMS does not, of course, make the BJP a working class party, but it
does mark a new low in the dominantly Left version of the trade union
movement. The degeneration had, in fact, set in within decades of the
impressive beginning of the movement in the major industrial centres. The
militancy, which not often kept pace with the nationalist movement, was soon
a thing of the past. And, those who had claimed to lead workers became in
the post-Independence years a lobby for high-wage islands.
The decline of the movement has been particularly obvious in the period of
liberalisation. The response of the trade union organisations to the economic
reforms has demonstrated their depleted relevance more than anything lese.
While they started with anti-reform tirades, and stick to the stand more in
word than in action, the period has witnessed the longest spell of industrial
peace in important industrial areas. Ironically, theirs has been the feeblest
voice during the debate on various aspects of the reforms such as an exit
policy or public sector disinvestment. Time would appear to be up for the
trade union movement as the country has known for long.
Back
Top
|
