The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.60/No.40           November 11, 1996 
 
 
Postal, Phone Workers Strike In India  

BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS

NEW DELHI, India - Some 1 million telecommunications and postal (P&T) workers here launched a nationwide strike over a wage dispute October 23. A week later, the walkout remained solid, having shut down most postal services, telephone line repairs, and the sending of telegrams.

Thousands of workers have staged protest rallies and set up picket lines outside hundreds of post offices and telecommunication centers in New Delhi since the walkout began. At many actions, unionists have burned effigies of Communications Minister Beni Prasad Verma, a social democrat, who declared the strike illegal. "The strike will continue until our demands are met," is a common remark at the union rallies.

The workers are demanding the government abolish a ceiling on annual productivity bonuses to P&T employees. Many workers depend on these bonuses to supplement low wages. The government has imposed an eligibility ceiling of 3,500 rupees per month [$1=36 rupees] for payment of such bonuses. Many of these workers average less than 4,000 rupees per month ($110). The monthly rent for a small one-bedroom apartment here is at least 1,500 rupees.

A few weeks earlier, the cabinet had removed similar restrictions for employees on the state-owned railway, a decision big business now laments. Parity with the railroad workers has now become a rallying cry of the P&T unionists. Another 1 million state employees in the departments of income tax, audit, and accounts, and elsewhere have joined the strike raising similar demands.

"Had the Union cabinet applied its mind to what it was doing instead of routinely endorsing Mr. Paswan's proposal, the United Front government would not be facing a mess which is entirely of its own making," said an editorial in the October 25 Times of India, the main English-language daily published in New Delhi. The editorial was referring to the proposal by railway minister Ram Vilas Paswan to abolish the bonus ceiling for railway employees, which was approved by the cabinet. The United Front government is a 13-party coalition regime that includes Congress, one of the main bourgeois parties; Yuva Janata Dal, a centrist formation; and the Communist Party of India (CPI).

Speaking at a press conference October 25, Communications Minister Verma lamented a "breach of trust" by union officials who had promised there would be no strike over the issue. Many of the union tops in the six labor federations that organize the striking workers are affiliated to the CPI.

"The frustration among workers is so high that leaders cannot call off the strike even if they want to," L. Balasubramani, general secretary of the Federation of National Telecom Organisations told reporters.

When Verma called on union officials to declare an end to the strike on assurances that the government would take the workers' demands under advisement, he got the support of O.P. Gupta, the 75-year-old general secretary of the National Federation of Telecom Employees and a CPI leader.

Other trade union officials, however, balked. "We ended our strike in 1993 on the basis of assurances which are yet to be fulfilled," T. P. Kodhandaraman, a top functionary of the Federation of National Postal Organisations, told the Times of India.

The government conceded that the strike is near total in both postal and telephone services across the country. The telecommunications ministry has sought to bring troops to act as strikebreakers. The number of troops involved is reportedly small.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home