RSS labour wing to approach opposition MPs against labour law reforms
New Delhi: If you thought the RSS labour wing’s war with various state governments including BJP-ruled Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, over labour law reforms is over, think again.
The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) after a slew of meetings has come up with a 5-stage plan to up the ante which includes reaching out to Member of Parliaments, including those of the opposition. The BMS has also confirmed to IANS that they will leave no stone unturned to ensure that this issue finds resonance in the next parliament session.
“What few governments have done has made a paradigm shift (to labour rights). Accordingly our response too should be appropriate. We will reach out to all MPs, regardless of their political affiliation,” said BMS general secretary Virjesh Upadhyay while speaking to IANS.
BMS has already started creating its phase 1 which is establishing help desks in each and every district of the country to assist workers in resolving their immediate issues which includes attention to migrant workers, assist contract workers particularly in big industrial areas, PSUs and government sectors.
Meanwhile separate help desks for unorganized sector will also be started to assist agricultural workers, daily wages workers, self-employed workers, said the organization that has already held a nationwide virtual protest on May 20 against the erect labour law dilution or virtual scraping off crucial sections of the law.
The BMS has decided to hold Union level leadership meetings all over India on May 30 and 31, to discuss issues and trends in the labour field. From June 1 onwards, all the BMS units and industrial federations units will organize a massive contact programme to “educate workers on the changes that are brought in different fields related to organized and unorganized workers. Pamphlets, poster campaigns will also be undertaken for that purpose, said the BMS.
On June 13 and 14, it plans to up the game by holding seminars on respective industries or sector related issues like corporatization of defence production units, PSU in strategic sectors, providing livelihood to lakhs of migrant workers among others.
The final phase of BMS’ offensive starts from June 16 and will last till the end of the month when BMS activists will contact members of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on the five major issues that they find pressing – “Pathetic condition of migrant workers, huge job losses, refusal to pay wages, unilateral suspension of labour laws and increase of working time to 12 hours and unbridled privatization”.
What can prove embarrassing for the BJP-led Centre is that the RSS labour wing hopes to reach out to MPs across party affiliations which means many of them will be from opposition parties as well, some of whom who have been critical of the BJP in terms of diluting labour laws.
Already a memorandum has been sent to President Ram Nath Kovind which Upadhyay claims has the backing of all district units across India besides “hundreds of industrial unions”.
The decision to up the ante has been taken in meetings chaired by C.K. Saji Narayanan, the National President of BMS besides Upadhyay himself.
Earlier, the Sangh-affiliate received backing of Confederation of Central Trade Unions (CONSENT), an umbrella body of Central Trade Unions like BMS, NFITU, NLO, INTUC etc who too had jumped to it for submitting memorandum to District Magistrates on May 20. Now, with the RSS affiliate certain to take the political parties whose governments in different states have substantially diluted labour laws, head on, June is going to see escalation of the matter by BMS.
Besides, with the BMS earlier calling labour reforms in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat – all BJP-ruled states – as a “black ordinance”, the saffron party is in for some embarrassment.