মারুতি-সুজুকি ইন্ডিয়া লিমিটেড-এর শ্রমিকদের সংহতিতে ২২শে সেপ্টেম্বর জাতীয় প্রতিবাদ দিবস পালন করুন

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Published on Wednesday, 21 September 2011 18:06

বিগত ২৯ আগস্ট থেকে মারুতি কর্তৃপক্ষ কোনওরকম পূর্ব ঘোসণা ছাড়াই তাদের মানেসরের কারখানায় অন্যায় এবং বেআইনি ভাবে লক-আউট করেছে...

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NTUI appeal for solidarity with Maruti workers

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Published on Wednesday, 21 September 2011 17:56

The Executive Council of the New Trade Union Initiative unanimously adopted a resolution at its meeting on 16-17 September 2011 in Kolkata in solidarity with the Maruti Suzuki India Limited workers in Manesar,Haryana. The New Trade Union Initiative strongly condemns Maruti-Suzuki management’s illegal,unjustified and unwarranted lockout imposed at its Manesar plant since 29 August 2011 after insisting that its workers sign a “good conduct bond” as a condition to enter the plant. Both these actions amount to gross unfair labour practices and the imposition of the “good conduct bond” by employers has been held to be an act of “force” and “coercion” by the courts. The NTUI also condemns Maruti-Suzuki management’s continuing violation of the laws of the land and failure to uphold the Indian Constitution which guarantees the right to association including forming and joining a trade union.

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Gujarat Government Legitimises Environmental rules Violation

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Published on Wednesday, 21 September 2011 03:22

Gujarat Government Legitimises Environmental rules Violation
Adam Hallidya, Tanvir Siddique, Ahmedabad, 20th September 2011.

Govt set to reduce buffer zone limits to 100 metres

 More comes after construction of residential complexes in Naroda and Vatav Industrial Area.
By Adam Hallidya, Tanvir Siddique, Ahmedabad, 20th September 2011.

The state government has decided to reduce the range of buffer zones around hazardous waste storage facilities in Gujarat from 500 metres to 100 metres. 

A resolution to this effect from the Urban Development (UD) department is expected in the next few days, top officials said. 

The move comes in the wake of several residential complexes having come up close to the Common 

Hazardous Waste TSDFs (Treatment Stabilisation Disposal Facilities) in the Naroda and Vatva industrial areas. 

The move assumes significance as building anything within 500 metres of these TSDFs and Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETPs) is not allowed anywhere in the country by the Central Pollution Control Board because the industrial waste stored in these facilities may leak, causing harm to human life. 

S K Nanda, Principal Secretary, Environment and Forests (E&F) department, said, “New TSDFs and CETPs will follow the 500-metre buffer zone rule, but all the existing ones will have reduced buffer zone of 100 metres. The decision was taken because many projects have already come up (within 500 metres of these facilities) and some are in the pipeline or have been sanctioned that people have paid money for.” 

He added that borewells would, however, be strictly prohibited in the complexes that come up in the 500-metre radius of these facilities and supplied piped water. 

Nanda said a meeting was held between the E&F department, various municipal corporations and the UD department, and the minutes of that meeting have been approved. 

While Urban Development Secretary I P Gautam declined to comment, top officials said the department would soon pass a Government Resolution officially authorising the reduction of buffer zone. 

The resolution would also contain strict guidelines that green cover be maintained in the 100-metre radius to make the buffer zone visible and there is no encroachment. 

Besides the ban on borewells in the 500-metre radius, a two-km radius would also be regularly checked for soil and groundwater contamination, they said. 

There are currently eight TSDFs and 26 CETPs that are supported by the government in the state. 

Officials said there are about seven more private TSDFs and over 5,000 private effluent treatment plants, while seven more ommon Effluent Treatment Plants are in the pipeline. 

Environmentalist who raised the issue cries foul

Vadodara-based environmentalist Rohit Prajapati, who was the first to raise the issue of residential complexes coming up in the buffer zones of TSDFs in November 2010, said he was deeply disappointed and angered by the decision reduce the range. 

“This is nothing but manipulation of environmental norms to legalise illegal projects. It shows powerful people can pressurise the government to do illegal modifications to legalise their illegal activities,” he said. 

“All this would not have happened if the government was vigilant enough to detect these constructions or acted upon his complaints since the constructions were still nascent and no one had occupied the flats as yet,” added Prajapati.

RTI on Modi's Fast

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Published on Sunday, 18 September 2011 08:08

Date: 18-9-2011

Activists from Gujarat Challenge Modi, ask which ministry spent how much money for the fast, officials from which ministry went to work for this non administrative stunt

Rohit Prajapati
[ROHIT PRAJAPATI]

Trupti Shah
[TRUPTI SHAH]

West Bengal: The Class Struggle is Not Over

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Published on Saturday, 10 September 2011 11:55

West Bengal: The Class Struggle is Not Over

 

For a long time, the CPI(M) had been mistakenly identified with class struggle. As a result, there was much elation on the Right after 13 May 2011, when it was evident that Mamata Banerjee would head a rightwing government in the province of West Bengal, earlier ruled for 34 years by the CPI(M). A totally stunned CPI(M) has been in no position to wage any kind of struggle, since this party and its cadres all the way to the village panchayat level had become accustomed to police protection and government support whenever it wanted to wage a “struggle”.

But the working class found new channels to express itself. Unorganised sector workers have sarted organizing themselves. An 'Asangothito Khetra Sramik Sangrami Mancha' (Militant Forum of Unorganised Sector Workers) was formed by June 2011. For three months, the organizers campaigned among different sections of the unorganized workers. An early deputation to the new government, which had promised Parivartan (change) had elicited a simple response: we have just now come to power, so we need some time. Incidentally, the labour minister in the new government is a renegade ex-Naxalite.

From 6^th to 8^th September, for three days, close to 11,000 workers gathered at the Metro Channel, Calcutta’s usual place for open air meetings and gatherings. The principal demands were:

# Recognition and issuing of identity cards to all unorganised sector workers (including sex workers) ;

# Fixation of minimum wage for all unorganised sector workers as per the norms of the 15th Indian Labour Conference , along with strict implementation of the Minimum Wages Act;

# Provision of cheap food for all, starting with 7 kgs of rice per adult at Rs. 2 per kg;

# Strict implementation of all provisions, especially 100 days of work, in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, with expansion to a guarantee of 270 days of work for all rural and urban workers;

#Inclusion of all unorganised sector workers, including workers of closed factories, as priority group or BPL in the 2011 Socioeconomic Survey

# Effective implementation of the Forest Rights Act (Scheduled Tribes and Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act);

#Permanent status for all contract workers employed in perennial jobs in the organised sector;

#Recognition and extension of facilities available to all socially backward castes and tribes.

On the 8^th, a deputation went to meet ministers. The response was blunt b—the government has a shortage of funds, so nothing can be done now. Few things have revealed the class character of the government so clearly. The workers too have thrown down the gauntlet, telling the government that unless their demands are met they will step up the level of agitation.

In India, at the moment, 37 per cent of the people have a body-mass index of less than 18.5, indicating they are suffering from malnutrition. The demand for making the PDS a stronger one is a rock-bottom minimum. The callous reaction of the government to this, while it discusses means of keeping the middle class and upper class voters happy, is something that will have more repercussions in days to come.

As callous as the government have been the major media. The Bengal Post alone carried a positive news. On the 9^th, The Telegraph printed a photo with a caption that said it all:

Return of rally raj

- CITY CENTRE CHOKES, citizens suffer

And:

Processions by two unorganised workers' associations converge on Metro Channel on Thursday and (above) traffic stalls on the Park Street flyover.

What better a way of telling the working class that they are not citizens? Their sufferings merit at best an end of year tax savings donation to a charity. Unless they mobilize and fight, the working class will have no alternative. And the struggle has been joined, under new leaderships.

Maruti Struggle Continues Despite Repression: Statement

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Published on Sunday, 04 September 2011 12:40

 

Maruti Struggle Continues Despite Repression: Statement by MARUTI SUZUKI EMPLOYEES UNION (MSEU) on 1 September 2011

 

The management of Maruti Suzuki Industries Limited, Manesar plant (Plot 1, Phase 3A) has terminated 11 and suspended 38 workers on 29th and 30th August 2011, on completely fabricated charges of go-slow in production and that workers have been ‘undisciplined’. It is doing this as a continuation of harassing workers for our struggle for the right of Union formation and other legitimate rights from June 4th to 16th. It is using brute police force to intimidate us, and is also continuing to pay and use bouncers and lumpen force to continuously threaten us. The management is also spreading a rumour that the production has resumed yesterday 31 August through a handful of contract workers, some supervisors, engineers and robots. This disinformation campaign has also been splashed across the media.

We on behalf of Maruti Suzuki Employees Union (MSEU) want to reiterate that production is at a complete halt, and not even a single car has been produced since 29th August 2011. All workers of the company, both permanent and contract, stand in solidarity and continue to wage struggle for our rights and against the management’s adamant attitude.

Today evening, 1st September, on the call of the MSEU, in solidarity with all the workers of MSIL, Manesar, over 5000 workers assembled at the factory gate no.1 for a dynamic gate meeting and juloos that followed in the IMT Manesar area. This includes workers from many factories in the Gurgaon-Manesar-Dharuhera-Bawal industrial belt in Haryana, including workers from Maruti Suzuki Gurgaon plant, Suzuki Powertrain Manesar, HMSI, Hero Honda, FCC Rico, Rico Auto Dharuhera, Rico Auto Manesar, Omax, Lumex, Sona Steering and many others. Workers and representatives of various Unions from the factory-based independent Trade Unions to central trade unions AITUC, HMS, CITU, INTUC, NTUI, AICCTU have solidly expressed solidarity with us. People from surrounding villages, as well as students, youth from universities and colleges in Haryana and Delhi and many intellectuals also participated in the meeting in solidarity with the workers.

We demand, as immediate steps, that the company revokes the termination of 11 workers and suspension of 38 workers. We also demand that it withdraw its charge-sheet imposed on the workers from June till now.

We appeal to all to stand in solidarity with our struggle in the coming days.

Shiv Kumar
General Secretary, MSEU