Strike Action: Whose Right is it Anyway?
People are yet to distinguish between a strike action and a protest, states PACHU MENON
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A labour union is primarily an organization of workers who have grouped together to achieve a common aim and through its leadership bargains with the employer(s), negotiating wages, work rules, complaint procedures, rules governing firing, hiring and promotion of workers, benefits, workplace safety and policies. In response to employee grievances, work stoppage caused by their mass refusal to work is referred to as strike.
The right to strike is considered the fundamental right of every worker. The oppressive management taken to task by an irate workforce that demands better working conditions, and appropriate wages to match the hours of toil, has been a regular feature that very broadly paints the labour scenario in India today. One can understand and sympathize with the working-class who are quite often victimized and exploited by an adamant managerial board that gives more importance to the productivity of the company than the welfare of its employees.
This saw the genesis of various trade-unions, primarily conceived to fight for the rights of the exploited class. But as has been usual with such associations, corruption and ill-conjured power equations amongst the leaders led to a steady decline in ethics and human values practiced – the interests of the workers was no more a prime concern. Unions began behaving autocratically and the lure of mega-bucks saw the office-bearers shifting their allegiance to the resourceful gentry.
Indulging in blackmailing tactics, instead of brokering peace and healthy working relationship between the employers and the members of staff, the unions were seen encouraging closures of the units over petty squabbles. The ‘Bombay mills-saga’, a glaring example of militant trade-unionism led to an effective collapse of a system that spawned a virtual generation onto the teeming streets of Bombay that comprised its underbelly. One could very well attribute the proliferation of the ‘Bhai culture’ that was the essence of the Bombay underworld in late 1970s and 1980s to this phenomenon. Unemployment and starvation brought about by a co-ordination that was meant to alleviate the woes of the proletarian class had in the bargain thrown them into total disarray, even breaking their will. Bowing before the collective strength of the factory owners and the manipulative union bosses, an essay in organizing the unorganized had thus capitulated into a wasteful and mortifying experience!
What we have come to believe of as civil disobedience, has now been given a different colour altogether. Political parties have successfully replicated labour negotiation techniques pressurising governments to change policies. Any agitation thus becomes difficult to be differentiated from a strike.
As a form of civil disobedience, a mass protest involving a total shutdown of shops and other business establishments was a rage during the anti- British Raj era. Mahatma Gandhi, responsible for staging a series of such general strikes in the fight for India’s freedom, institutionalized the concept of Hartals. Today the term has been very blatantly vulgarized to mean an exhibition of show of strength brought about by an affected few to present their gripes as a generalized problem.
People are yet to distinguish between a strike action and a protest, making it extremely difficult to tell apart an industrial unrest from a mass uprising. In pursuance of a wage-hike for workers, one fails to find any justification in the forceful demands of the activists for the pulling down of shutters in the market and closure of offices and educational institutions.
Burning buses and damaging public property has been the favourite pastime of various student-unions pressing for their demands for decades now. The sight of youth, taking to the streets, abandoning themselves to everything else but the core curriculum is a consequence of party-politics having entered the citadels of learning. Neither has the teaching fraternity been inspirational! With students and teachers taking turns to boycott classes for various reasons, the educational foundations may one day be reduced to mere monumental edifices, the monoliths signifying that these were once the hallowed precincts of erudition.
Flash strikes disrupting day-to-day life are a way of life for us Indians. How can even an iota of development come into a state where, at the very outset, when plans are still in the pipeline, there are thoughts of picketing and unfurling red-flags in protest against the project!
In spite of having state owned corporations that operate regular bus services within and on inter-state routes, there is sizeable presence of privately owned carriers that ply on the same routes in almost every state of the country. Somehow, the private bus owners’ lobby is never a pacified and satiated one, and there are frequent rumblings from their end for a revision of ticket fares every time a hike in fuel prices is announced. Giving ultimatums to the governments and observing token strikes for a day, or at times days together, they are unmindful of the hardships caused to commuters. One fails to understand why the authorities have to bow down to such exacting tactics, when the government fleet at their disposal can very well take care of any such eventualities. Or are they adhering to the ‘live and let live’ policy, one wonders!
The country’s worst air disaster in a decade, when a Boeing 737 Air India Express aircraft overshot the Mangalore airport runway and burst into flames killing all but eight onboard, plunged the whole nation into a pall of gloom – or so one would have thought! With raw wounds still gaping, a nation watched in askance as a section of the Air India employees went on a lightening strike within days of the disastrous air-crash, disrupting hundreds of flights. Engineers and ground crew constituting a major percentage of staff strength were up in arms against the ‘gag order’ on members for talking to the media after the Mangalore air tragedy and ‘delay’ in payment of salaries. The nearly one-and-half day strike was called off following a Delhi High Court order.
The de-recognition of unions and sacking of the leaders responsible may be a small consolation, but the fact remains that the striking employees behaved in the most callous manner. How insensitive can one be to a fellow human’s plight! As someone mentioned, ‘it was the blackmail of a nation in mourning’.
A new pattern seems to be emerging these days. The setting now shifts from the grumblings of the apparently underpaid, to those from the public sector whose salary raises can only be called substantial. But does this stop them from agitating? Bank employees, central and state government staff, doctors and nurses from state-run hospitals, engineers and technical staff of various corporations. The list is endless. As a writer rightly pointed out, “it is time to have a strike calendar just like a holiday calendar!”
In the milieu, one has forgotten to live. Obviously, we celebrate these circumstances, treating them as nothing less than a festival. Immaterial of the public awareness created on the ill-effects of observing bandhs and hartals, people prefer to stay indoors fearing the strike-related violence.
With this mentality, why then will not the shutdown calls for the most innocuous of issues, be an instant success in this country?
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Hogs and Kisses!
By Francis Rodrigues
A sharp knock came from the PC monitor. Cocky’s head had struck it again. “This Herald e-paper is good”, she said, “But the news from Goa is not!” “How so?” I queried, “All are happy, well-fed, even murderers are Lucky!”
“The problem with you,” she said sarcastically, “Is you think of your stomach first – and it’s all the pork bafad, choriço and sorpotel inside, that’s to blame! Pigs are getting all the attention – and therein lies the meat of the matter!”
“Whaddya mean?” I expostulated, “All they get is our waste matter!” “Don’t you watch the news?” she screeched, “Goans are turning into pigs!” “Says who?” I gasped wittily, “The Minister for Pork?” “Oi re, dukor!” she screeched, “On the one hand, the CM tells us we’re irrelevant, he doesn’t need our votes! On the other hand his lollio Minister calls us squealing pigs for opposing his big-builder buddies’ mega projects!”
“What’s your problem? “ I snapped, “Did you want to be a pig??” “God forbid!” Cocky was shocked, “Starting life eating human sausage, and ending it as another in a choriço-pão…I’ll be an outcast!”
“There you go again!” I said, “Bringing up the caste-bogey once more!” ”Aik re, berro!” Cocky reprimanded, “His deep plot is going to cost us!” “How much?” I yawned, “Even a shallow plot costs crores in Goa today!”
“The rubbish you talk,” she scolded, “would put a Goan fisherwoman to shame. Now just shut up and listen. The Minister prefers pigs to Goans simply because they can listen to him mindlessly, and given the chance, will overrun Goa – did you know the pig is the most procreative bovine?”
“I see you’ve done your hamwork!” I punned, “But why are you squealing at the montri? Let his pigs fly why must you be the fly in his oinkment?” “I’m ashamed of you!” Cocky cried, “Goa’s going to the pigs…but never mind! As I was saying…the Minister’s whole idea is to feed the pigs!”
“Whaaaat?” I gasped, “Hogwash! He is our homemade Robbing Hood!” “Mor, mu sung!” Cocky cursed. “The whole idea of the montri is to set up as many mega-projects in the state – each with hundreds of klutzy apartments. In seconds the water tables will disappear in all the villages!”
“Kitemmm?” I gagged “How will Goans carry out their daily ablutions?” “Now you understand! “ she crowed, “It’s a plot to favour the Goan pig! No water, means no sanitation, no septic tank…and back to pig-toilets!”
“Won’t the stink drive away the tourists, the Russians, and us Goans?”
“Exactly!” gloated Cocky, “His agenda all along. We all kiss Goa goodbye. Then he’ll get access to the priceless real-estate, the invaluable ore-mines! He’s even set up a secret Ministry, though hiding it under…Konkani!” “Ani an kitem?” I cried, “He’s the loudest supporter of…Romi Konkani!”
“And that’s the name of his Ministry!” Cocky screeched, “Can’t you see?” “Nah go bai!” I wept, “Is it his dumb ministry to promote Romi Konkani?” “Exactly!” she spat, “Ministry for….Promotion of Romi Konkani….spells?” “It’s the Ministry of P….O….R….K!!” she screamed and collapsed.
The popat always knows.
