Comrades, friends, brothers and sisters
May Day greetings!
Today the working people face very serious attacks Using
Covid-19 as an excuse, the employers and governments want to push us back to
those days, 134 years ago, when the Chicago martyrs sacrificed their lives
fighting for 8 hour work day. The BJP government at the centre is reportedly
taking measures to legalise 12 hour working day. The BJP governments in Gujarat
and Madhya Pradesh have already issued notifications to that effect.
The BJP government at the centre also wants to complete the
labour law codification process by executive order or through the ordinance
route to attack the basic rights of the working class to organise and to
strike. The Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry has demanded that trade
unions should be prohibited for at least one year and to reduce the wages of
the contract workers to the level of the MGNREGA workers, to Rs.202 a day. The
government and its masters, the big industrialists obviously want the workers
to be pushed into slave like conditions. The order of the MHA, dated
19.04.2020, which prohibits movement of the migrant labour across state
borders, but permits it across all the districts within the state they are
locked-down in, is a gross violation of human rights. Many more attacks on the
rights of the working people are on the anvil on the plea of reviving the
slowing-down economy, further aggravated by Corona and lockdown.
Instead of mobilising financial resources from the superrich,
the government is putting the entire burden on the workers and the common
people. It has announced that the DA/DR rise for the central government
employees and pensioners, approved by the Cabinet, will not be paid up to July
2021. Several state governments are unilaterally deducting wages without any
consultation with the employees. Despite all the directives and guidelines from
the government, thousands of enterprises, both private and public, and
appallingly even the public sector undertakings are retrenching contract/casual
workers and cutting down their wages.
The working class cannot accept such attacks on its
livelihood and working conditions.
The government claims to be facing a financial crisis due to
Covid-19. The fact is the government had emptied its coffers much earlier by
tax concessions to the Corporates, sale of profit-making PSUs, non-recovery of
NPAs in PSU banks etc. The government is arm-twisting its employees into
contributing to PM CARES Fund one day salary every month for one year! But the
workers are already bearing the triple whammy – of the already existing global
crisis and economic slowdown, then the Covid-19 and then the unplanned and
preparation less countrywide lockdown. Large sections of the workers and
employees, including the front line health workers, are working almost 24 hours
a day risking their lives to save the lives of others. Large number of workers
including the migrant workers and unorganised sector workers are bearing the
brunt of corona and the lockdown in the form of job-loss, loss of earnings,
even loss of shelters along with their family members going hungry under the
sky.
Instead of providing any relief to the workers, who create
the wealth of our country, who are today forced to starve and have become
homeless, the government is extending concessions and incentives to the big
corporates and businesses.
It is possible to mobilise the necessary resources by
imposing a nominal, very small wealth tax on the superrich.
Every year, top 1% usurp 73% of our GDP. Today the wealth of
the top 1% of the rich in our country is more than 4 times of total wealth of
the lowest 70% of our people. The combined total wealth of 63 Indian
billionaires is higher than the total Union Budget of India for the fiscal year
2018-19 which was at Rs.24,42,200 crore. 953 billionaires’ families in our
country have an average wealth of Rs.5278 crores. The BJP government abolished
wealth tax in the Union Budget of 2016-17. A small wealth tax on these super
rich will easily enable the government to meet the expenditure necessary to
provide relief to the around 50 crore of the workers and other sections of the
toiling people.
But the government is not ready to do this. Instead, it wants
to take Covid-19 as an opportunity to push its already existing anti-people
‘reforms’ agenda so that its corporate masters can further increase their
wealth by sucking the blood of the poor workers and toiling people.
It is shocking to see the foot soldiers of the party in
power, use the corona pandemic to demonise the Muslim community as a whole,
sowing seeds of communal hatred. At the same time voice of dissent and
democracy and constitutional rights as a whole are facing an added assault in
the wake of Corona Virus and in the name of enforcement of lockdown.
The working class cannot allow this.
On this May Day, the International Day of Solidarity of the
Working Class, let us pledge to defeat these machinations of the BJP government
and its corporate masters.
On this May Day, in the midst of lockdown situation, let us
observe May Day by raising the flag of our respective organisations in every
house of our members and workers, every workplace which is in operation in
lockdown period, maintaining physical distancing and at the same time asserting
social solidarity and unity.
Let us pledge
Unite to fight the corona virus, to stay safe and protect our
health.
Unite to fight to defend the right of eight hour working day,
which is under attack.
Unite to fight against the merger of 44 labour laws into four
courts only to favour employers curtailing the rights of workers.
Unite to fight to defend the existing social security,
occupational safety health measures and to make them inclusive for universal
coverage.
Unite to fight against privatisation of Government and PSUs
to the multinationals, like 100% FDI in Indian Railways, Defence Factories,
Coal, Port & Dock, Air India, Banks, LIC, 76 PSUs etc.
Unite to fight the manoeuvres and machinations of the
capitalists and the governments that represent them, to shift the burden of the
economic crisis aggravated by the virus entirely on to the working class.
Unite, to fight the dirty attempts of the capitalists and the
governments that represent them, to pauperise the workers and denude them of
their hard won rights while protecting profits and wealth of the big
corporates, generated by the working class and the toiling people.
Unite and fight to thwart all attempts to disrupt working
class unity and unity of all toiling people and divide them on the basis of
religion, region, race, caste, ethnicity and gender.
Unite to fight and defeat the attacks of imperialism on the
workers and people of the world to establish its hegemony and push the diktats
of international finance.
Unite and fight to heighten the struggle for the end of the
exploitative capitalist system and usher in a new exploitation free society, a
socialist society.
Long Live May Day
Long Live Working Class Solidarity
Long Live Worker Peasant Alliance
Long Live Socialism
Down With Capitalism
