Bharat Bandh on January 8: Around 25 crore expected to join all-India strike, claim trade unions

Nearly 25 crore people are likely to take part in an All-India strike on January 8 to protest against the Modi government's "anti-people" policies. Ten central trade unions (CTUs) announced the participation on Monday.

"We expect participation of not less than 25 crore of working people in the forthcoming National General Strike on January 8, 2020, to be followed by many more actions seeking reversal of the anti-worker, anti-people, anti-national policies of the Government," the 10 CTUs said in a joint statement as cited by PTI.

"The Ministry of Labour has failed to assure on any of the demands of workers which called a meeting on January 2, 2020. The attitude of the government is that of contempt towards labour as we construe from its policies and actions," the statement added.

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Trade unions INTUC, AITUC, HMS, CITU, AIUTUC, TUCC, SEWA, AICCTU, LPF, UTUC along with various sectoral independent federations and associations had adopted a declaration in September last to go on a nationwide strike on January 8, 2020.

About 60 organisations of students and elected office bearers of some universities have also decided to join the strike with an agenda to raise voice against increased fee structure and commercialization of education, it said.

The trade unions condemned the JNU violence and similar incidents in other university campuses and expressed their solidarity with students and teachers all over India.

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"As many as 12 airports are already sold out to private hands, 100 per cent sale of Air India is already decided, the decision to sell BPCL taken, BSNL-MTNL merger announced and 93,600 telecom workers already thrown out of jobs under the garb of VRS (voluntary retirement scheme)," it added.

The unions are also against privatisation in railways, corporatisation of 49 defence production units and forced merger of banks.

The joint platform of more than 175 farmers and agricultural workers unions will extend its support to workers' demands and observe January 8 as Gramin Bharat Bandh along with their charter of demands, they added.

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