Hummingbird News Desk
KRISHNAGAR, 2 MAY: Members of various trade unions, mass organizations and human rights and civil liberties organisations took out a rally and convened a street corner to mark May Day in Krishnagar on Sunday.
Members of APDR, AICCTU and WBGEU (NP) organised the programme and Santipur Janaudyog and SPS also joined the programme. Apart from these organisations, people from different sects participated in the programme. The rally started from Sadar Hospital Morh and ended at Post Office Morh. The rally was decorated with red flags and festoons.
The trade union activists said that May Day continued to be a reminder of workers’ rights and how it continued to be throttled by successive Governments. The challenges facing the working class and how the present Government at both the Centre and the State was pursuing policies that was both anti-workers and anti-farmers in nature was highlighted by the trade unions.
The dilution of the labour law in pursuit of labour reforms, the amendments to various laws in the guise of land reforms to push the small land holding farmers to the brink, the escalating price of essential commodities that was affecting all sections of society were stated as evidence of the Government’s anti-workers policies.
Dhiman Basak ( Santipur Janaudyog) , Jyatu Deshmukh and Jiban Kabiraj (AICCTU), Tapas Chakraborty and Indranil Chattopadhyay (APDR) , Jyotirmay Pal, WBGEU (NP) and Anupam Pal (SPS) delivered their speeches. The street corner started with a song, sung by Arunava Sanyal, an active worker of peoples movement. The speakers from all organisations boldly condemned the labour code and privatisation of public sectors. All the speakers ended their speech with an aspiration of struggle against all sorts of oppression to achieve the world of equality, and peace in true sense.
Though May Day, which came into being in 1890 and led to a settlement as per which only 8 hours of work was stipulated, the situation was drastically different in the country with people working 12 to 16 hours to sustain themselves under duress. What is dismaying is that there is a proposal to make 12 hours the official norm which was detrimental to the interest of the workers, said the trade union activists.
Tags: #MayDay #TradeUnions #Krishnagar #UpholdWorkersRight
