All The Same In Workers' Front!
A friend asked some time ago whether we also feel like him that it is all the same in workers' front. He explained – at times we hear about some militant worker’s fights and then a lull period comes, and that cycle is going on for years after years, for almost three decades or so. And then recently we heard about some new kind of fights, workers moving ahead defying their TU leaders but holding the banner of that same TU, like in Hero Honda; then more recently heard about fights of rico, sunbeam, etc, workers – but what happened at last? The same old story, back to square one; at last they succumbed; some may have some grudge within, but of no avail; they couldn’t stand apart, could stand independently on their own feet ...and so on so forth.
We dare not ‘answer’ that friend right now about the scenario of worker’s fight all over the world with so small resource we have right now, nor do we intend to give a very partial answer in a short editorial piece like this. So, what we want to do here is to present some pictures. And well, we know we may get castigated for showing one-sidedness in selecting those pictures. But let’s start. We shall look into what happened in the last couple of years only.
We never printed photographs in our pages but this time we cannot help yielding to temptation of presenting some. Here is picture no: 1 – guess what’s going on.
This is a part top view of Ssangyong Motors where troopers are landing. Ssangyong was a Chinese owned Korean Car factory where the govt pressed into service helicopters, 3 to 4 thousands armed polices, 50,000 volt lighting guns and other modern equipments with them, to crush factory occupation of hundreds of workers – who were also ‘armed’ with their own made armaments and catapults that can throw nuts/bolts at 200 metres distance, and allegedly self made pipe guns and firebombs too. What was the issue? The company wanted removal of 48% of the workforce; 1700 by summarily dismissal, retrenchment of 300 casuals and for some, 1 year unpaid leave with consolation that they might be taken back if the company’s condition would improve. Many went for voluntary redundancy but others, 976 workers, began an occupation of the plant on May 21, 2010. They held out for 77 days. Gas, electricity, water, ...all supplies were cut off at the last phase of struggle, including medical aid for seriously injured workers. Workers were left to eat some rice balls with salt and drink rainwater. Ultimately, of course “Ssangyong motors strike in South Korea ends in defeat ...” as Loren Goldner, renowned Korea specialist and writer at various sites, including those of Anarchists, wrote in his headline. Many were taken as prisoners and their chief was recently punished with 4 year’s prison term. After the ‘settlement’ almost at company’s terms the workers union snapped ties with KCTU (Korean Confed of TU-s) in early August. (In July, union of the nation's largest telephony carrier, KT, dissociated itself from KCTU, after several smaller unions severed their ties with the umbrella organization. KT was the KCTU’s third largest member with 28,000 members.) There is no further news of that union – we mean about what they are thinking and doing now. As per the bourgeois daily Korea Times, June 11 this year, – the union as such ‘doesn't want to be seen as a militant group anymore’; though ‘there still are minor struggles between the pro-management and anti-management labour group’s; and ‘What has united the workers are the prospect of an M&A (Merger & Acquisition), and the hope of having their old colleagues back in the factory’ (provided the financial condition of the company improves – as the company told before) – as per as another news the Indian group Mahindra & Mahindra recently took over the company. A move is going on for the release of all prisoners including Han Sang-kyun, who was sentenced to 4 years imprisonment. So, ultimately, ‘nothing positive’ happened in terms of gains of workers. No new type of TU emerged declaring independent activity and continuation of struggle. But there is a ‘but’. Remember when you last heard of nearly thousand workers taking vow of armed resistance! And Ssangyong workers got it done! Through their ‘resounding’ defeat they have shown the fire in them; and that ‘sound’ will reverberate for years to come in the minds of workers, defeated, heads down, but jaws clenched.
Factory occupation, though, is an old story in Europe. In the sixties and early seventies hundreds of such incidents occurred in France, Italy and elsewhere. But the ugly (to the management) thing called ‘gherao’ which were rampant in late 1960s in Bengal was rather ‘un-European’ in terms of the long history of TU struggle, decent and cultured TU struggle of civilized countries. Now look at picture no: 2 below (courtesy www.autoevolution.com from “Michelin Workers Lock Up Execs – 22nd of July 2009 | 15:14 GMT | Daniel Patrascu”)
A more ‘appalling’ picture of one boss, tied and blindfolded, stuffed in backside luggage space of a car, appeared in www.iafrica.com story “world news ‘Bossnapping’ spreads”, Fri, 23 Oct 2009, but later they withdrew the picture from their archived story. Anyway, a friend from Europe assured us that those pictures were not ‘real’, no such thing actually happened; those were posted in Bourgeois sites to ‘malign’ the workers and to ‘protest’ the un-European way of ‘gherao’ or the current French term ‘bossnapping’ – but, one thing is certain, these pictures portrayed the fuming mood of the workers. That bossnapping continued for many months in 2009 and many a ‘bos’s of several factories was forced to nap in locked up rooms, for hours, even for days, and even a CEO was bossnapped by encircling and stopping his car on road. With this type of highly angry protest the workers greeted recession led retrenchments, ‘restructuring’, closures etc; and their mood was expressed in a filenames – ‘Bossnapped! (It's French for industrial action)’, or, ‘we-must-bossnap-our-way-to-recovery’ or ‘Bossnapping gains acceptability as response to layoffs in France’ which says “Almost half of French people believe it is acceptable for workers facing layoffs to lock up their bosses, according to an opinion poll published on Tuesday” (reported April 8, 2009).... In 2010 France is plunging in a series of railway strikes, port strike, strike at all the refineries, etc.
When the French were busy with bossnapping why the English (and the Irish) workers would be left behind! There also started wildcat strikes and occupations – though we, at the moment, do not know of more than a dozen names of factories of places where such incidents happened. The most talked about occupation took place in Visteon plants, and the Belfast Visteon struggle involved thousands of their neighbourhood – all workers of different factories and their families. The Belfast occupation could not reach success, or rather got defeated, but that was due to two weak Visteon plant’s unions in England who won in the ballot to withdraw strike by a slight majority amongst Visteon workers defeating Belfast workers (and some English workers too) who wanted to continue. Belfast workers couldn’t save their jobs but continued their fight and finally could get better terms for redundancy. But, as writes Charlie Kimber in Socialist Review (Sept 2009) “The Belfast occupation inspired the same at Enfield. Visteon was a model for Vestas. The model of occupation travelled to Thomas Cook workers in Dublin, and London bus workers' decision to occupy the foyer of Transport for London for a while as part of their pay campaign. One led to another. As “Boys on the Balcony”, the song generated by the Vestas occupation, puts it, “We may not win but we sure can try / Learn from Visteon and occupy!” ...” Just think of the slogan of the Vestas Wind Turbine boys, they were inspired by Visteon fight, not demoralised by Visteon defeat! Other wildcats did spread in Lindsay oil refinery, and at Newark, as Indymedia reported, “The recent wave of wildcat strikes in the construction industry has sparked a walkout at Staythorpe power station in Newark. Workers walked out yesterday and are still on strike.” And imagine how the British capitalist fought their workers and recession at the same time – they even started hiring non-unionised temporary workers from abroad! Charlie wrote like pré cis, “For years we were served up example after example of defeat, or of struggles snuffed out by union leaders. Now rank and file initiative has delivered success and begun a process, not a series of unconnected events.” And he headlined his article “A New Period Of Class Struggle” – take it with a pinch of salt, ’sil vous plait, or if you like, with question mark or mark of exclamation. He finished his piece saying, “None of this means everything is going swimmingly. But it does mean there has been a qualitative shift that must be recognised and developed much further.” We repeat again, we do not want you to believe all these in toto; you may say it to be overzealous exaggeration; but recognise the facts and also just try to feel the sentiments of the workers over there.
Last year also saw Greece boiling with unrests. You may not accept as true info written in an anarchist site, but one may cross check it with other sources: “This was undoubtedly also at the forefront of the minds of union leaders during the general strike on Wednesday the 10th, who pontificated against the violence of the rioters and lauded the ‘quiet demonstrator’s who respect the due process of bourgeois politics. Still, the riots continued. The strike was called a month before, as part of a leftist response to the neo-liberal ‘reform’s on the part of the government (which were begun by the ‘socialist’ party), and was meant to be a propagandistic action rather than a weapon. The current circumstances were unforeseen. Though the General Labour Confederation of Greece and the Civil Servants Confederation attempted to contain their members in static and uneventful rallies, the efforts of school students and anarchists to involve them in the street confrontations succeeded, and a joint march proceeded in Thessaloniki to the Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace, which ended in clashes and the blockade of a city centre street.” It is a fact that Greece saw a turbulent year. In this year too Greece is simmering, clashes between police and workers are continuing, and many video clips of such incidents are available at Internet.
Another site, ‘In Defence of Marxism’, writes, “A strong wave of spontaneous strikes took off in January. This was a typical offensive movement of the working class on the economic front. Literally every day there was a strike in at least one significant factory in Belgium that month. The bosses compared it to an “epidemic of wild strikes”. They grumbled about the lack of respect for the “agreed and established rules of negotiations”. The union leaders were being accused of having lost the credibility of their members. What the bosses are really complaining about is the growing inability of the union tops to hold back their members as they did before. The truth of the matter is that the union leaders, as well as the bosses, were completely taken by surprise by this sudden surge of strike activity.” Wildcats were also reported from Columbia. All those actions were not TU Bos’ss strikes called from above, but ‘rank and file action’ from below. And somehow workers belonging to decent Euro-American TU tradition forgot to carry on ‘action’s lawfully, they broke the boundary of ‘law and order’, and pressurised/bypassed their established unions for their actions. Picture number: 3 below shows a bleeding demonstrator hit on her face by the riot police in central Barcelona, Spain, during their recent general strike (from The Guardian, 29/10/10).
And the workers, in many cases, lost, but their cumulative effect was not ‘feeling down’, but reflecting, rethinking, regrouping and again fighting – as we saw in the continual 2009 wave. (Readers of this magazine already know about worker’s fights in China in recent times where though somewhat differently struggles are going on.)
It is indeed easy to ignore all these actions saying ‘haven’t we saw enough of things like these (or many things like this) in the 1960s.’ But we would like to request to consider: Consider 1960s without Red China, without Mao, without any party or group with enough working class base, without a flag and ideology that did attract millions in Europe and with the all-total defeat in the international working class movement! Moreover, all these are happening after a long period of lull, or ‘the peace of graveyard’. And after that we are seeing independent actions of the workers. This is to be kept in mind and obviously while reading the next part also.
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As we said earlier, our knowledge of recent workers struggles abroad is very limited. So lets come back to India where we’ll feel slightly more comfortable in terms of availability of news.
In a page of one of our earlier issue we wrote: “The permanent workers of grazziano transmissioni, an Italian firm at Noida went for reinstatement to their jobs from which they have been kicked out by the company management repeatedly in groups from January 2008. That was the fateful day–17th September 2008. The workers have been eagerly waiting for their reinstatement on the basis of an understanding reached at the Additional Labour commissioner’s office, Ghaziabad ready to give a mafi-nama. A representative team went inside to discuss while all other workers waited outside. But, Mafi-nama for what? For forming a trade union and demanding proper human working conditions, ...wage increment...! The company management forcibly tried to make them write responsibility ...and make assurances that there won’t be any workers agitations in future. The small team of workers representatives were surrounded by threatening goons in ‘security’ uniform. Amidst protest by the workers a security guard fired in the air to frighten them ...What followed was further intensifying of the conflict, assault on the workers and the rush of the mass of workers waiting anxiously outside to join duty. In that melee the CEO ...got the fatal injuries. ...” The workers of Grazziano Transmissioni at Noida, where the CEO died, had no properly speaking functioning trade union. But workers of pricol at Coimbatore, near Chennai, had a functioning union affiliated to aicctu, the TU wing of CPIML-Liberation. There, on 22nd September 2009, a top-notch manager was beaten to death while a regular, legal TU movement was then going on for withdrawal of dismissal of some 40-50 TU activists, wage settlement and etc. Further, on July 17, 2009 report goes, “Strike of labour department employees entered second day” – the reason being “employees continued to boycott work ...Almost 4,000 officers and workers of the department had gone on strike yesterday against the alleged misbehaviour with the Labour Commissioner. ...The Labour Commissioner Sitaram Meena was allegedly beaten up by LML workers two days ago during a protest outside Meena's office. Police have arrested 112 workers and their leaders in this connection and searches are on for a few more.” What is also known that workers of another closed down factory joined hands with the LML workers in that rampaging and beating episode. LML workers came into news some years back also: “May 29, 2006; As 2500 locked-out LML employees tried to collect their long-disputed temporary checks today, they discovered that LML had terminated 12 employees active in the union, including union president Jai Prakash Pandey and general secretary Suresh Singh. In the ensuing chaos, the enraged and chanting employees did not collect their checks, and union officials, including Pandey, were refused permission to enter the factory to meet with management. Two labour inspectors were present as specified by the original agreement, but were apparently unable to quell the masses or mediate any discussion.” But all these are one side of the picture of desperation, desolation and dehumanisation caused generally by capitalism and particularly by the savage attack of adamant capitalist-government administration-party/TU nexus in this era of globalisation. Lets see the other side: “20 hospital employees attempt suicide in Haldwani, 3 critical; PTI 10 July 2009, 07:32pm IST; Haldwani (Uttarakhand): Demanding regularisation of their jobs, twenty hospital employees including five women on Friday allegedly attempted suicide outside a hospital here. Wardboys and midwives of the Sushila Tiwari Forest Trust Hospital allegedly consumed pesticide after the hospital authorities turned down their demand, official sources said. However, police took them inside the hospital where they were given treatment. The condition of three of them was stated to be critical and they were referred to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi, they said.” All these incidents as if twit/taunt us – ‘you boast of standing on the history of century old TU movement and...!’
Anyway, the govt has become serious about such incidents. From a report of The Economic Times 28 Sep, 2010 (04.09AM IST) by Vikas Dhoot, ET Bureau: The worst manifestation of such unrestwas seen when Graziano Transmission CEO LK Chaudury was murdered by a mob of workers two years ago, after he laid off a few contract labourers. A Cabinet note moved by the labour ministry to amend the 1971 law has called for urgent action to prevent such instances from spiralling into a national labour crisis. ... The proposed amendment mandates that contract workers get the same wages, facilities and benefits as regular employees. ...“By one amendment, wages would increase,” labour secretary Prabhat Chaturvedi told ET. “Most contract workers are paid just 40% of regular wages with no social protection. To earn profit by exploiting labour isn’t desirable in a democratic country and welfare state,” Mr Chaturvedi said. ...While industry is sceptical about how these changes will be implemented, the government is in a tizzy over the implications. Several ministries have called for a rethink as they rely heavily on contract workers. In many public sector firms, contract workers make up for over 70% of their staff. The government is one of the biggest users of contract labour, they have pointed out. ...” Sad fact is that the govt just started thinking after so many terrible incidents.
But, after all, the above do not at all represent the entire picture, or rather the emerging picture. We shall quote two concluding paragraphs from the Editorial article of Analytical Monthly Review (Dec 2009 issue, electronic copy, courtesy, sanhati website), a magazine highly esteemed by revolutionary activists before presenting some more pictures.
“The recent mass strike in support of Rico workers in Gurgaon is, in this context, of significance. Rico Auto Industries workers spontaneously found their own leadership, and in August began negotiations with management demanding wage increase and the right to form a union with All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC). A futile application was made to the labour department in Chandigarh for formal recognition. In September Rico Auto locked out the workers, and the Haryana Labour Court declared the Rico strike illegal. When Gurudas Dasgupta, the general secretary of AITUC, and the AITUC national secretary DL Sachdeva came to Gurgaon to address Rico workers, they were arrested by the police. On October 18th management thugs armed with iron rods and police shooting live ammunition attacked the strikers, killing Rico worker Ajit Yadav. On October 20th 60,000 to 100,000 workers of 60 to 80 factories in Gurgaon came out on a one day strike called by AITUC; the police said the strike was “illegal in all respects” but in the face of such solidarity were helpless. The outcome of the strike at Rico was mixed, but the lesson for Gurgaon workers invaluable.
“The end of illusions about a “neutral” labour law or judiciary is potentially an enormous victory for the Indian working class. With every strike a confrontation with the state, the possibility increases for the working class to “comprehend the essence of capitalist society, the relations of exploitation between social classes and its own historical task” and therefore to become a “class-for-itself” (Mao, On Practice). The responsibilities (and possibilities) for young revolutionary organisers in Gurgaon and in SEZs elsewhere are once again clear and urgent. Keep an eye on Gurgaon Workers News and Faridabad Majdoor Samaachaar.” [Emphasis ours]
It was probably not possible to elucidate detail of the Rico – Sunbeam fight in the short space of that editorial. But, as we emphasised, the workers fought spontaneously; new leadership sprang up from the workers themselves (and not placed from above by any central TU or party); 60000-100000 workers rallied spontaneously for the cause of their class brethren and also showed their own eagerness to fight – aituc could never dream of rallying even 10000 workers in Gurgaon at their own, even while calling nationwide strikes and etc; and finally, whatever be the outcome of the Rico struggle, ‘the lesson for Gurgaon workers (was) invaluable’ – naturally here the editor pointed to the lesson the workers are taking from summing up their own experiences – and the potential lesson was elucidated in the final Para . The Sunbeam struggle is also a glaring example – there were no economic demands, rather the workers only demanded election of the union to wrest power from the management-friendly TU leadership. It is true that the ‘new’ type of fight and fighting workers there could not yet get rid of all that of the ‘old’ prototype; and that was explicit through their desire to affiliate their union with aituc, bit of expectations of theirs from the CPI MP etc. But these remnants of ‘old’ cannot nullify the presence of the embryonic, germinating ‘new’ that is trying to sprout in an unfavourable climate of ‘defeat of the international working class movement’, absence of a working class party worth its name, etc. And that ‘new’ was the fight developing from below, leadership developing from below.
One may debate whether workers can, on their own, sum up their experiences to grasp ‘invaluable lesson’s without conscious intervention ‘from without’ by a class party, whether the possibility can become reality or whether ‘class for itself’ can become from ‘class in itself’ on its own etc as written in the Analytical Monthly Review editorial, but facts remain facts and that was presented in the last but one Para.
That fact was further reinforced by two recent happenings in Gaziabad. (1) From an email sent by Anand Singh on behalf of Bigul Mazdoor Dasta regarding an incident that took place in Allied Nippon Comapany Sahibabad, on Nov 13, 2010: “What transpired on 13th November? The Union had earlier declared a strike and the company management wanted to halt it. On the ill fated day at 2 o’clock in the afternoon the HR Head of the company Mahendra Chaudhary went to the two wheeler clutch wiring department along with another manager Yogendra Chaudhary. Some altercation ensued with the workers there. After that Yogendra Chaudhary opened fire and in 4-5 rounds of fire a bullet hit a worker named Brijesh. Subsequently the angry workers valiantly fought with the officials and in an act of defence by the workers, the manager lost his life. Many people were injured from both the sides. ...” A Times of India report on the same incident “Violence at Nippon: Gzb industrialists put DM on notice”, by Lalit Kumar, TNN, Nov 16, 2010, said, “Meanwhile, Ghaziabad senior superintendent of police, Raghuvir Lal, said the officials in the management provoked the workers. “They fired shots with private weapons, which enraged the workers who were already seething with anger after the labour commissioner's office declared their strike planned for Tuesday illegal,” he said. He said the management could have easily had a discussion in the presence of police.” But why all these happened? In this factory the workers themselves run their union. The union compelled the management to take in contract labourers as permanent in phases (50 workers per year). This year the management took dilly-dally tactic and the permanent workers were in a movement to pressurise on this issue. In that movement this incident happened. (2) The incident in Harig India – 2nd Nov: 6 leaders of workers own formed union dismissed. Workers pressurised to take them back; they started a strike, demanding that they would only join along with the dismissed workers. Almost same episode happened before some months and then the management had to step back. Here the workers formed their own union, got it registered on their own. Only for formal affiliation they got affiliated to CITU, although in the plant level the workers themselves conduct all their affairs including negotiation. CITU only gets chance to be present in the negotiation at higher level, e.g. at DLC meetings. Management this time said they would take back the dismissed workers after 6 months. After further pressure from the workers management said they would take them back on next Jan 27th and would be given full payment. But the workers didn't believe the management and did stick to their earlier stand even when advised by the CITU leadership. Rather they shrugged off the CITU suggestion and continued their strike for more tha a week to hammer the point in the head of the management.
Anyway, this admixture of ‘old’ with ‘new’ in several incidents must be acknowledged, otherwise the ‘new’ will remain invisible and the painful process of the germination of the ‘new’ cannot be understood. The ‘new’ appears clearly in the form of independent decision making and actions of rank and file workers, such workers who were seen to be relatively ‘backbencher’s previously, the way ultimately leading to formation of ‘new’ organisation. As the ‘new’ is germinating in the midst of ‘old’ it bears residues of the ‘old’ outlook. But where the ‘new’ has not yet appeared distinctly, there an admixture of ‘new’ and ‘old’ is seen; the bearers of the ‘future’ ‘new’ then appears to be pressurising from below still bearing the ‘old’ flag.
To make clear further, can anybody think of intuc and citu led unions pressurising MNC management to reverse the present trend of the managements today of increasing workload, lowering (real) wages and benefits, decreasing permanent workforce/increasing contract work and etc? But that happened in bosch plants at Naganathapura (having intuc union) and Audugudi (having citu union) in Karnataka – and that cannot but be explained by the ‘new’ thing there – the ‘rank and file pressure’ of thousands which, in fact, compelled the established TU leadership to move, though haltingly and partially (an ‘agreement’ was reached on 25th March 2010). The Business Standard news from Chennai May 18, 2009, says, “Chennai-based tyre manufacturer MRF has declared a lock out at its Arakkonam factory near Chennai. The company’s decision comes after cross sections of workers at the factory are continuing their sit-in strike for the ninth day.” Here also we see the almost same picture of rank and file pressure, because, though TU rivalry though was there, these days established TU-s seldom take the risk of closing down a MNC plant.
After north and south India we may travel westward, our present destination is alang, or to be precise, alang and sosiya ship recycling yard (actually breaking and scraping yard), one of the biggest such yard in the world, located in Gujarat. A CPIM district committee leader, also a citu portfolio holder Mr Arun Mehta there once regretted as reported by the prestigious French magazine L’Humanité in February 2006, “I’ve been to the shipyards many, many times. Union activities are not, strictly speaking, banned. But how can you convince people who are struggling to feed themselves that they should be fighting for their worker’s rights, which they don’t know anything about? If they protest, they lose their jobs. ...These workers don’t even know the name of the ship-breaking companies they’re working for. It is the recruiters who hand out their wages ... or who don’t pay them. I’ve managed sometimes to help workers get pay that was due to them, only after 6 months of “discussion”... We are defending the Alang worker’s rights. ...At the same time, we are against the destruction of our industries. ...” In that very shipyard things changed within 3 years. “20,000 workers in Alang on strike to protest wage cut; Nayan Dave, TNN (Times News Network), Mar 24, 2009, 09.12pm IST; RAJKOT: At a time when everything was looking rosy for Alang shipbreaking yard, nearly 20,000 workers here have gone on an indefinite strike to protest the reduction in their wages.” There is also an union, Alang Sosiya Ship Recycling and General Workers Association (ASSRGWA), which no established central TU boast of owning (at least we haven’t yet got any evidence of that). It might have happened and it was likely that they put pade likhe admi (learned TU babu-s) at the top positions of the union, even some top notch official of established TU-s, though we definitely do not know. Then, through an international network of news-via-email we got, “This year (2009) in June, ... about 15.000 workers were in strike demanding workers colony, wage hike, hospitals, schools. As per the version of the Union leader of Alang Sosiya Ship Recycling and General Workers Association (ASSRGWA) since 1982, no basic amenities are provided to the workers though the Ship breaking is recognized as an industry.” (on the face of death – workers plight in alang ship breaking yard by dn.rath@gmail.com; it was also mentioned that: ‘This article is published in Indian Age, 1st September 2009 issue’.) Surely there had been enough spontaneity and eagerness to fight; otherwise no such strikes could have happened had the workers remained in that old condition.
In the west, in the ‘industrial capital’ of Punjab, Ludhiana, there had been textile workers struggle in the recent time. From an email of Anand Singh, on behalf of Karkhana Mazdoor Union, we came to know, “The power loom workers of Ludhiana’s Gaushala, Kashmir Nagar and Madhopuri areas gained a magnificent victory on the 15th day (30th September, 2010) of their strike under the leadership of the Karkhana Mazdoor Union (KMU) .The factory owners had to relent under the combined strength of the workers. A representative group of the owners of 26 factories held a meeting with the worker’s representatives for negotiations in presence of the Assistant Labour Commissioner and finally they agreed to sign a written agreement. As per the agreement a hike of 11-12 percent in the piece rate/salary has been promised for the different categories of power loom workers. The agreement would be implemented in all the 59 factories whose workers were participating in the strike. ...This is the third phase of the successful strikes of the power loom workers of Ludhiana under the leadership of the Karkhana Mazdoor Union (KMU). Earlier the workers of the 42 power loom factories of Shaktinagar, Tibba road forced the factory owners to accept to their demands after 8 day long strike from 24th August to 31st August. This was followed by another successful strike in Jindal Textile factory. In the history of last 18 years of Ludhiana’s labour movement it is the first occasion when the workers have achieved a worthwhile success against the combined might of the factory owners. There has been a new awakening among the workers of Ludhiana after these recent successes.” Maybe some CR activists help that organisation ‘Karkhana Mazdoor Union’ and its struggles but it was not an organisation made ‘from above’, it is not affiliated to any central TU, and the spontaneous mass participation can be seen from the video clips available in the net.
But to comprehend the agonizing process of germination of the nascent ‘new’ and the picture of the ‘emergent new’ it will be better if we travel eastwards to West Bengal to look at some factories.
Bizarre fight of workers of The Jute Industry as a whole: From 2002 onwards we are witnessing strange fights of Jute Mill workers, generally at factory level, but at times in the whole industry level too. On 2002 over two hundred thousand workers of thirty-nine jute mills simultaneously staged a strike for several days without any umbrella union, even without any plant level union, against the agreement signed by established TU leaders. Since then, plant level strikes happened whenever the management tried to impose stringent norms of production and wage- cut as per the same agreement. Strikes also happened due to other reasons, as for example – in a jute mill in Hooghly district, two non-permanent workers of nightshift of a jute mill went to protest to the management for negligence in attending an worker injured at work ? management didn’t comply ? the workers came back and reported at their department ? workers decided to quit work ? it spread to all departments ? night shift workers came out ? morning and evening shift workers joined their strike ? strike continued till management took proper action as demanded by workers. And those episodes ran without intervention of any established unions, simply because nobody would listen to the advices of those unions which the workers hate; and also that happened without any properly speaking worker’s own union and its leadership. But the most peculiar thing perhaps is that workers of different jute mills didn’t come forward to form their own unions. Why? Most probably the reasons are (as much we can estimate from our assessment about sentiments of jute workers): (i) if they form an union and elect its leadership, as seen in case of all established unions including those of lefts, management can try to ‘purchase’ the union and its leaders; (ii) management, if failed in their ploy of purchasing union and leaders, may try to victimise the worker-leaders by police intimidation, jail them framing fake charges etc; (iii) also jute workers, from their cumulative experiences of decades about party-TU-management-administration nexus, hate altogether things named ‘party’ and/or ‘union’. There might be other minor reasons also. But anyway, under the leadership of their invisible, intangible ‘union’s and ‘leader’s the fights of the jute workers continued and are still continuing.
Happenings at the Tribeni Tissue plant of the ITC group: Nearly all the contract workers, hundreds of them, left citu and formed their own union some two years back. After the sweeping victory of Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the Panchayat election in WB that new union went over to get TMC affiliation. After some months TMC leadership (TU babu-s) betrayed the workers by signing an ugly agreement with the management. The workers became furious and left TMC. The central leadership of TMC, in a damage control mission, sent two ex-naxalite-now-TMC leaders there. They spoke to the workers using their old known juggleries of words that were most un-TMC like. And they convinced the workers that TMC, overall, is at the side of the workers and it were only the local TMC leaders who betrayed. The workers got attracted by their drama and came back again in the TMC folds. But after some months they could recognise their error and again left TMC. One day, they booted out one ex-CR-now-TMC babu when he came to re-persuade the workers. Then another strange development took place. Many permanent workers joined hands with the contract workers and together they formed ‘Tribeni Tissue Permanent Non-Permanent Workers Platform’. Just think of the entire process: leaving citu ? staying independent ? joining TMC ? leaving TMC ? rejoining TMC ? rejecting TMC ...and through this process their mass increased and denunciation of other established unions too increased, as reported by a CR activist who maintains contact with them. Two things remained untold – (i) that CR activist and his comrades blatantly criticised the workers through a leaflet for joining TMC and emphasised that what was needed instead was worker’s own independent union and independent fight rejecting established TU-s and their way of conducting ‘fight’s relying on outsider leaders, administrative channels, MLA-MPs etc; the workers, though did not accept the line then, yet they couldn’t throw the leaflets in the waste bins; (ii) the management has employed police administration to ‘persuade’ the leading worker-activists to rejoin TMC. Anyway, here we can actually find the complex, zigzag process of the germination of ‘new’ in the quagmire of the ‘old’.
Affairs in Gondolpara Jute mill near Chandanagore in Hooghly: Here the ‘invisible, intangible’ ‘new’ jute ‘union’ suddenly became visible to the activists who regularly go there and came across a meeting of 600-700 workers in a field. From the very meeting workers formed a peculiar organisation, not union, with a strange name: azad majdoor sangh. The meaning of the term azad, as far as one worker says is that ‘once we were ghulam-s of the British and now we find us as ghulam-s of the capitalists; we want to break free from this ghulami and become azad.’ Later on they went to form their own union azad majdoor union, which is run and managed by them. They themselves fight issues at factory level; if needed they go to police station to free their colleague if caught by police on flimsy ground; they attend sick colleagues at hospital and arrange the necessary ...and not only that. They have to bother about the Bengali vs. non-Bengali tension, Hindu vs. Muslim tension, inter caste tension among Hindi speaking workers etc and act as per necessity while the management surreptitiously always try to increase those tensions and create divisions to disunite the workers. So, the ‘new’ has to perform a ‘social’ duty too, not solely ‘practical – economic’ or duties of TU nature!
There have been endeavours by contract workers of BSNL (Calcutta Telephones), Farakka NTPC, Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation (this latter one is known to the readers of this magazine) etc – sometimes they are getting successful in organising their own new union and starting their new fight, and at places they are moving through a complicated painful path. But they are on the move.
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So? It can certainly be said that it is not all the same in the worker’s front. ‘New’ fights by the rank and file initiative are developing ‘from below’ and sometimes at some places the workers are stepping forward to form and then run their own ‘new’ organisations; although in many places the advanced leading workers had stopped midway facing stern obstacles, could not step forward further toward separating themselves organisationally from the ‘old’ and forming their own organisation. Examples are surely not abundant; rather they are scant. But shall we not recognise the sprouting new trend counting solely its numerical strength?
Otherwise European examples are very odd to explain. In most of the advanced industrial countries ‘Trade Union Density’ or the percentage of wage and salary earners within the TU-s, is severely decreasing (barring examples of a few countries like Belgium and some Scandinavians). Among French workers only 8-9% are members of Trade Unions – some sources mention that the total number of union members there was nearly 3.19 millions at 2006 (like www.eurofound.europa.eu/), which certainly decreased since then; and some other source (Federation Of European Employers) put the figure as 1.8 million. But at a recent march of the workers, simultaneously in several cities, 3.5 million workers participated. More workers participated in the recent repeated strikes. Bourgeois Media feared ‘radicalisation’ among workers. Financial Times on October 20, that is much before the unions withdrew strike movement, fearfully wrote “But it is far from clear whether union leaders – under pressure from members to hold firm or even become more radical – are prepared to call a holiday truce.” Safe Haven (http://www.safehaven.com/), a site for big investors, in their “Weekly Geopolitical Summary, 14 October 2010” wrote: “French transport and oil industry workers launched a massive strike this week, disrupting public transportation services on Tuesday and Wednesday and leading a nationwide protest march in which it is believed that as many as 3.5 million workers turned out. ...Analytical Note: There is a risk of radicalization, here...”. Le Monde recently wrote – Bernard Thibault (head of the old communist party led union CGT) does not desire to be amused by the fun of radicalisation and that he, like bosses of other unions, thinks there is risk of radicalisation (http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2010/10/07/reforme-des-retraites-les-syndicats-entre-radicalisation-et-exasperation_1421608_3224.html). While TU membership is deteriorating, militant fights crossing the boundary of hitherto existing pattern and fighting worker’s numerical strength are increasing! It seems like French workers are dragging behind them their TU-s! Just as the unions gave up, on Oct 30, a French pilot’s union with more than 3,500 members called for a four-day strike! While this anger is understandable, the result of this radicalisation is likely to be more and bitter and more and more violent labour conflict, which will hinder the transition toward some sustainability and make it far more costly than it ought to be.” In UK, in the year 2003, only 18.1% of the private sector workers were trade unionised; now it is certainly lower. But there independent actions of the workers were seen to be on rise last year. In Belgium, around year 2000, more than 55% members were trade unionised. Recent figures are not in hand. But as we have seen, “The bosses ...grumbled about the lack of respect for the “agreed and established rules of negotiations”. ...What the bosses are really complaining about is the growing inability of the union tops to hold back their members as they did before.” In Greece too, trade union density is falling; only a quarter of the workers were union members around year 1995-2000, and now, certainly, it is less; but crossing the legal boundary is on the rise, disobedience to the commands of the established TU leadership increasing. European workers have gained a lot of experiences in the past 60-65 years after the WWII; they saw ‘soviet communism’ and its fall, they witnessed socialists and euro-communists and their humiliating failure and abject surrender, the savage Thatcher-ism and ensuing globalisation and ‘austerity drive’.... Perhaps they are still in the process of assimilation of their experiences and marking time regarding formation of their own organisations of the working class in spite of having entered the arena of struggle by their own initiative – we know so little about such experiences of European workers that we better refrain from commenting any further.
Actually, the workers have no other way to go. They are seeing that their old organisations, Parties and TU-s, have betrayed them, became organisation of ‘other’s, i.e. of the TU bosses and/or party bosses, and those TU-s went ahead further to become employer’s gadgets to manage the workers, or in other words, the second layer of management. There is no working class party in the true sense of word. At the same time the workers are facing the severe attack by the capitalists aided by governments and its agencies, whereas the established parties and TU-s have all become ardent supporters of the new economic order, of globalisation. Therefore, at this moment, to resist the onslaught of the capitalists the workers are compelled to fight standing on rank and file initiative, creating their own new set of leaders from among them, and ultimately go forward to build up their own ‘new’ organisation, which at this moment is forming new TU-s – but those are not just TU-s as understood in the old days, they have to have a certain minimum political ‘tinge’ as far as they are separating from the ‘old’ party-TU and their conciliatory and surrendering politics and as far as they are seeing that every single fight in a single factory is de facto fight against the central policy of capitalist-govt-party-TU nexus.
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That Analytical Monthly Review Editorial pointed out in the concluding Para, “The responsibilities (and possibilities) for young revolutionary organisers in Gurgaon and in SEZs elsewhere are once again clear and urgent.” This needs to be elaborated; the revolutionary organisers will certainly not like to let the possibilities wane; and so we shall deal with what their responsibilities are in the next issue of this magazine.
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