Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) Deputy General Secretary Surendra Kumar Pandey on Feb 12 Wednesday said that the organisation is against two out of four new labour codes. Raising serious objections to some of the provisions in two codes — Industrial Relations (IR) and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions, Pandey said BMS will resort to agitation if the Government passes it without taking them into confidence. (thehitavada.com, 13-Feb-2025 ).
The Big media has little space for workers’ problems. The Modi regime is pushing, in an arbitrary and undemocratic manner, its anti-worker agenda.
Pandey was addressing the inaugural session of the 19th Triennial Convention of Akhil Bharatiya Khadan Mazdoor Sangh, the industrial unit of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, which started at Dr Hedgewar Smriti Bhavan, Nagpur.
Times of India reported, Feb 13, 2025:
“We are opposed to the proposed the two codes on industrial relations and occupational safety. The industrial relations code entails recognition of only those unions that represent 51% of the workforce. With none in a position to meet the criterion, unions will be totally wiped out. It was only because of BMS that implementation of codes was put on hold for four years,” said Pandey. He was in Nagpur to attend the 19th triennial conference of Akhil Bharatiya Koyla Mazdoor Sangh (AKBMS) — an affiliated trade union.
BMS claims to be the biggest trade union with a membership of over one million workers.
The Centre is likely to implement the four controversial labour codes in April, said Pandey. The union emphatically opposes two of the codes and threatens to hit the streets against the decision. The labour codes are likely to come into effect after talks with all trade unions scheduled March-end, as per BMS sources.
In 2019-20, it may be recalled, the Modi govt had proposed four codes governing labour issues, replacing a plethora of laws. These codes are on wages, social security, industrial relations, and occupational safety. BMS accepted the first two, but suggested amendments in industrial relations and occupational safety.
“A meeting is due towards March-end, which may be a prelude to implementing labour codes. BMS will stick to its stand that rules for industrial relations and occupational safety must be amended,” he said.
Other unions have declared total opposition to all four new codes. However, it seems to be a political stand by the unions. BMS finds the two on wages and social security suitable, but insists on an amendment in the other two, he said.
BMS even while supporting the latest Budget proposals, opposes the budget proposal to raise FDI in insurance sector to 100% and is also against corporatisation, including of ordnance factories, said Pandey.
BMS praises Indira Gandhi for nationalisation of industries, and opposes Modi Govt policy to “sell away” PSUs
“BMS will oppose Modi govt policy to sell away PSUs”, says BMS.
BMS deputy general secretary Surendra Kumar Pandey praised late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for nationalisation of industries and criticised subsequent govts, including NDA, for disinvestment.
“Till 1972-73, almost every industry was in private hands. Indira Gandhi should get credit for bringing it under govt control. However, the policy adopted by later govts by Congress and BJP, only forced privatisation.”
“Exploitation even in PSUs”
We shall fight determinedly against Coal industry privatization, says BMS leader K Lakshma Reddy said 2020. (Dainik Bhaslkar, on 11th Feb, 2020. But Modi govt pursues the privatization policy, is bent on it.
Lakshma Reddy, in-charge of the coal sector in BMS, said contractual workers face exploitation even in public sector undertakings (PSUs). Instead of daily wages of up to over Rs 1,000 in line with the high-power committee recommendations, contract workers get around Rs 300-400. The number of contract workers in the coal industry, including PSUs, is the same as those on permanent rolls, he said. BMS will be raising a proposal to improve their payment conditions, he said.
More than one crore workers in PSUs are casual,contract workers who are not regularized even after decades of service. They are denied even a basic right of “equal pay for equal work,” which must be paid, irrespective of the category, the Supreme Court ordered several times. But all governments, led by any party, at the Union or states’ level are one in this.
Trade Union Duplicity
The BMS at its 19th National Conference, in Oct 2020, inaugurated by RSS chief Mohan Bhagavat, passed six resolutions seeking the “ withdrawal of anti-worker provisions in the new Labour Codes”; “ a consultation meeting with BMS and other trade unions”; resolved to organise country wide “warning week” and even “nation wide protests”. It threatened a “continuous agitation thereafter, including national level strikes to protect right to strike and other labour rights”. It spoke of “ imported predatory economic and labour reforms and defective policies of the capitalist paradigm are responsible for landing our job generation in a sorry state of affairs;” and demanded that central and state governments should stop the “brutal way of amending Labour laws, desist from indulging in ‘ordinance raj’ in labour sector and respect the views expressed by social organisations.” In a separate resolution, the BMS welcomed the Supreme Court decision of scrapping Gujarat labour reforms. (Hindustan Times, October 06, 2020).
Four years rolled by, and the Modi regime rides roughshod over workers, and others, despite (verbal) criticism by its own wings.
(See Swadeshi Jagaran Manch Against Modi’s Economic policy, by Ramakrishnan,(08/08/2021)
https://countercurrents.org/2021/08/swadeshi-jagaran-manch-against-modis-economic-policy/
There is no unity between word and deed, BJP and Sangh parivar are known for it. Not that other ruling class parties are any different, if one sees the report by organiser.org, last year (2023/12/10).
In a press release issued, December 8, 2023, Surendra Pandey, had asserted that more than 26 lakhs of Aanganvadi workers and helpers who have been working in the field of malnutrition and other issues pertaining to children since 1975 have themselves become undernourished due to exploitation of the government. Same is the condition of the Mid-Day meal workers who provides food to the school children. (That is amid freebies, with an eye on votes, like 5 kg rice free of cost for 800 million people. But these hapless women workers are denied, saying they are Govt employees.)
Additionally, Asha workers, NHM and other scheme workers who think about the overall well-being of the society are also facing issues pertaining to salary and lack of other facilities. The BMS will hold a protest for these issues faced by these scheme workers at Jantar-Mantar, in which workers associated with these schemes across the country will also participate, Pandey had said.
Further, the union leader told Organizer, RSS magazine, ‘our prime demands related to these scheme workers are that these workers should be declared as government staff and they should be paid similar salaries, along with providing them with social security.’
Our representatives will soon submit a memorandum along with our other demands pertaining to these workers to the relevant ministries, such as the Women and Child Development, Health and Education Ministry, added Mr. Pandey in the end.
Meanwhile, speaking with the Organiser representative, Pawan Bansal the zonal organisational secretary of the BMS said,The Aanganwadi scheme has been running for the past 50 years; you tell me which scheme has been running for so long? It means the scheme and the workers are the permanent necessities of the government, so why not they declare these workers as government staff? We will meet with the ministers and put these demands before them.
Affliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BMS is one of the largest trade union bodies of the Bharat. The BMS that was awarded the presidency of L 20 summit under the recently concluded G20 held in Bharat came into existence in the year 1955 and was founded by Dantopanth Thengadi.
*** ***
Author Ch.S.N.Murthy is a Trade Union Leader, General Secretary of Federation of Independent Trade Unions, FITU from Andhra Pradesh. He is a functionary of UCCRI-ML founded by veteran communist revolutionaries D.V.Rao and T.Nagireddy. He was a welder, and Union leader, in Coromandel Fertilizers, and later became a full-time activist. He worked in and led several trade unions of food processing industries like sugar, edible oils, rice mills, as also in transport sector, both PSU-APSRTC and private goods carriers, paper mills, ceramics, quarries.
He contributed several articles to countercurrents.org
He can be reached at: [email protected],
Or by WhatsApp number: 773 000 3545
Read a two-part, detailed article by him:
New “Code on Industrial Relations, 2020” : United Struggles- the only Way for Working-Class to Exercise and Protect its Right, by FITU General Secretary ChSN Murthy (2020 Nov 20 and 23).
