Dehradun Update: 12 on hunger strike for last week; no response from government

April 30, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Shankar Gopalakrishnan

The struggle for justice of the Rockman and Satyam Auto workers continues. Since last Sunday, 12 more workers from both factories have been on hunger strike at the Parade Grounds in Dehradun (and are now on their eighth day). A rally is going to be taken out by the workers shortly.

The original 11 hunger strikers, five of whom had been on hunger strike since April 6th and six from April 9th, and who had been forcibly hospitalised since April 15th, were discharged from hospital at the end of last week. They called off their hunger strike late last week after being severely beaten on the night of April 19th and forcibly put on drips (see photos here), tearing out the drips, and being threatened with further beatings. The workers decided on this after noting that further beatings would probably result in some of their comrades losing their lives.

The strike continues and has now crossed almost six weeks for the Rockman workers and five weeks for the Satyam Auto workers. There is no sign of any negotiation on the part of the government or the companies. No action has been taken against either the police for their brutality or the companies for their gross violations of labour law.

Nothing, not hunger strikes nor protests nor month-long strikes, is enough to move the conscience of the Central and State governments, wedded as they are to brutal exploitation of workers by any means possible. But the workers have refused to give up.

For background on the strike and struggle, see here. For more information please contact Amit, Inquilabi Mazdoor Kendra (09568216305) and/or Trepan Singh Chauhan, Uttarakhand Nav Nirman Mazdoor Sangh (09411143539).

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Workers of Harsoria Healthcare (Gurgaon) stage a sit-in strike

April 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Shyambir
Santosh Kumar

For the past couple of days (from April 24 onwards) about 450-500 workers of Harsoria Healthcare Pvt. Ltd., Udyog Vihar, Phase-4, Gurgaon have been sitting inside the factory premises in protest. The factory has 250 permanent workers, 300 contract workers and about 50 casual workers. They are protesting against the termination of the services of their three union leaders and the suspension of 10 workers. The services of two of these leaders were terminated in Dec. 2011, while another was fired in February, 2012. The demands of the workers include payment of Deepawali bonus and regularisation of the services of casual and contract workers. The workers are also protesting against the frequent change in their departments, delay in payment of salary, increased work intensity and non-payment of loyalty bonus of about Rs. 1500 per month on completion of 4 years with the company.

There was a strike in April 2011 in this factory when the management dismissed 7 workers out of which 6 of them were taken back following negotiations. The services of three of these workers have been terminated again. There was a lathicharge against the workers during the April 2011 strike and 7 workers were arrested and implicated in a number of cases including one against the hoisting of the union flag at the factory gate. Around 21 workers had been implicated in one case or the other. The workers are demanding the withdrawal of these cases. Meanwhile the company management has ordered the termination of services of 100 more workers. The management has also declared that it does not want to see the permanent workers within the company premises.

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Dehradun Update: 33 workers now on hunger strike, 11 for about three weeks

April 25, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Shankar Gopalakrishnan

The strike by the workers of Rockman and Satyam Auto (both plants in Haridwar), suppliers of Hero Motors, has now crossed a month in length. 11 hunger strikers are still being forcibly detained in hospital. The Rockman workers have been on strike now for five weeks (since March 19th) and the Satyam Auto workers for almost as long (since March 22nd). Six Rockman workers have been on hunger strike since April 6th (19 days); five Satyam workers since April 9th (16 days); and 12 more workers since Sunday. These last 12 hunger strikers have not yet been detained. The workers are still protesting in the Parade Ground at Dehradun after their release from jail last week.

Aside from an expression of regret by the DGP (who has also said he has directed an inquiry into the beating of the hunger strikers in the hospital), the government has taken no action whatosever. Both companies – which grossly violated labour law – are functioning with contract workers and supplying to Hero Motors, which reportedly is accepting substandard and shoddy parts from them just in order to break the strikers.

As earlier, for more details please contact Trepan Singh Chauhan, Uttarakhand Nav Nirman Mazdoor Sangh (09411143539), and/or Amit, Inquilabi Mazdoor Kendra (09568216305.

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Delhi: Blind Workers’ day-long protest (April 24)

April 24, 2012 by Leave a Comment

BLIND WORKERS GHERAO THE RESIDENCE OF THE MINISTER OF SOCIAL JUSTICE & EMPOWERMENT
DAY-LONG PROTEST LEADS TO THE GRANT OF JOBS TO RETRENCHED BLIND WORKERS
WORKERS DEMAND IMMEDIATE DISCUSSION ON THE LANGUISHING 2011 BILL ON RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITY

Today, large numbers of blind workers collected outside the residence of the Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, Shri Mukul Wasnik. These workers have met the concerned Minister, as well as officials in the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment on several occasions since November 2011. However, the deep rooted concerns of blind workers lay un-addressed. Today, when the blind workers initially gheraoed the residence of the Hon’ble Minister, he did not meet them, and left his residence in haste. This response once again convinced the blind workers that the Government is least concerned about providing adequate employment to the blind, as well as protecting the basic labour rights of blind workers employed in the private sector. However, undeterred by the Minister’s initial decision not to entertain a delegation, the blind workers continued to sit outside the Minister’s residence in the scorching April heat. The militant protest finally led to some dialogue as the K.M. Acharya met with the workers’ delegation. Following a lengthy discussion between Shri Mukul Wasnik and officials in the Ministry, the Ministry finally agreed to provide alternative employment at a government-supported institute, to all the blind workers retrenched by the NGO, National Federation of the Blind (NFB).

Since November of last year, the blind workers have been protesting the retrenchment of several blind workers by the NFB. This NGO retrenched the workers because they were speaking out against denial of minimum wages and other basic labour rights in the Training and Rehabilitation Centres (TRCs) run by the NGO. However, the struggle of the workers is not just against the NFB, but also against the overall exploitation of blind workers across the country by private companies and NGOs. In the interest of availing of certain benefits like tax exemption for employing persons with disability, the private sector is known to employ yet brutally exploit disabled persons. The arbitrary hiring and firing practices, unregulated working hours, etc. prevalent in the private sector, amount to a serious breach of social justice, which is why the bind workers have been approaching the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. More importantly, the workers realize that the failure of successive governments to provide adequate employment to the blind community is the main reason why blind workers are dependent on the highly exploitative private sector. Hence, their struggle is based on the fundamental right to a livelihood—a right the Government is to protect and uphold. The three specific demands that the workers sought to discuss with the Minister were:

(i) Inclusion of a special section in the long pending Bill on the Rights of Persons With Disability (2011), which would safeguard the economic rights of blind workers employed in the private sector. For example, the Bill should include provisions to the effect that bodies violating basic labour rights will be penalized to the effect that NGOs indulging in such violation will face the cancellation of their registration.

(ii) That the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment tables a concrete plan of greater job creation for blind persons in the public sector. It is only with the provision of more government jobs that the dependence of blind workers on exploitative private companies and corrupt NGOs can be overcome.

(iii) That because the Ministry has failed to curb the blatant violation of labour rights by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), it should ensure that all the disabled workers employed by NFB be provided alternative employment by the Government.

As the situation stands, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has conceded the third demand of the blind workers. With respect to the first and second demand, the Ministry has asked the Blind Workers Union (BWU) to provide a concrete plan which can be subsequently discussed and implemented.

Alok Kumar
Ramnath
Blind Workers Union
(A Unit of All India Federation of Blind Workers)
T-44, Panjabi Basti, Near Gopal Dairy, Baljeet Nagar, New Delhi-110008
Contact: 9313730069 Email: blindworkersunion@gmail.com

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Delhi Press Release on Nonadanga and Urban Struggles (Protest Demonstration, April 25)

April 24, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Halt eviction drives of urban slums and colonies!
Uphold the struggle of the toilers for the right to land!
Militant resistance in Nonadanga long live!!

Comrades, we are witnessing today the militant resistance of slum-dwellers of Nonadanga against the eviction drive of the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) through brute police force. Nonadanga presents us with the determination of the urban poor and working class to constitute an alternative form of social, political and economic power. The residents of Nonadanga have refused to budge from the site, have put up temporary shelters and a community kitchen, and are confronting the police everyday with their bare hands and their indomitable will, trying to hold on to whatever little they are left with. Since April 11, 5 comrades under Ucched Pratirodh Committee have persisted with a fast-unto-death in the site for 12 days with undeterred support of the entire slum, and beyond. Reconstruction and rebuilding of the demolished houses are being undertaken by them.

Nonadanga is a paradigm of struggle and unity that must be generalised across Kolkata, West Bengal and beyond. For, it’s only through the eruption of a hundred, thousand, million Nonadangas across the country – that the working class will be able to effectively pose its might and vision against the prevailing hegemony of neo-liberalism and its authoritarian political executive. In the absence of such a countrywide generalisation of urban resistance, the working masses of this country, including the residents of Nonadanga, have no hope in hell.

We are witnessing in India today, a ground preparing for a rising tide of urban upsurge. However much the ruling classes seek to dazzle the working people with the shine of their developmentist fables, corporate parks and election promises, they cannot hide from us the violence that is intrinsic to this process of capitalist ‘development’. Even as the agrarian crisis daily pushes the peasantry from villages to the cities as a proletarianised mass, capital is busy robbing this ever-growing population of urban workers of its bare necessities such as living wages, adequate land, decent housing and clean drinking water by putting up ever-heightening enclosures of rent and user-charges. Not just that. The political executive of capital does not flinch from turning the misery it produces into an opportunity for further accumulation. Even the demand for rehabilitation is used by neo-liberalism, more often than not, to carry out yet another assault on the reproduction of labour-power. The increase in distance between the place of residence and the source of livelihood that most resettlement and rehabilitation process imposes on the evicted slum-dwellers further devalues their labour-power by lengthening their average labour-day. Worse, any murmur of dissent against such accumulation by dispossession is brutally crushed by the state in order to ensure that the value of our labour-power can be progressively diminished even as the rate of extraction of surplus value is simultaneously enhanced and capitalist class power is reinforced.

The ongoing struggle against forcible eviction of slum-dwellers in Nonadanga, Kolkata, has revealed precisely that. On March 30, 2012, the KMDA, with the full support of the Trinamool Congress-led West Bengal government and its police force, bulldozed and burnt down the houses of over 200 families in the shantytown of Nonadanga in the name of ‘development’ and ‘beautification’. These people, who have lost their homes and hearths, are those whose cheap labour is ‘legally’ exploited to run the economy of the entire city. They are the toilers of unending nights and days, informal-sector workers and unemployed battling precarious living conditions. Among them are either those who were resettled here after being evicted from various canal banks across the city, or those whom the Cyclone Aila (2009) and the farm crisis uprooted from villages in the Sunderbans and other parts of the state respectively.

The state (and the corporate media), acting on behalf of capitalist land sharks eyeing this prime location in the city, are hell-bent on portraying these people as ‘illegal encroachers’. It has unleashed police and ‘legal’ repression, on an everyday basis, on all those who have been trying to resist this. A march of residents, under the banner of Ucched Pratirodh Committee (Resistance-to-Eviction Committee), was brutally lathicharged by the police on April 4, and again a sit-in demonstration four days later (April 8th) was violently broken up and 67 people arrested. Subsequent meetings and rallies held in solidarity with the movement on April 9 and 12 were attacked by goons and hundreds of activists were arrested by the police. Seven activists of various mass and democratic rights organisations, which stood in support of the Nonadanga movement, are either in jail or in police remand till April 26. Cases under Sections 353, 332, 141, 143, 148 and 149 of the IPC have been slapped on them. One of them, Debolina Chakraborty, has even been charged under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). During a court hearing on April 12, a prosecution team of 40 lawyers made a concerted bid to implicate them in a slew of false cases and paint them as ‘anti-national’, opening earlier ‘Nandigram cases’, even going so far as to claim that Nonadanga was used for ‘stockpiling arms and ammunition’. We remember that this Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool government came to power using the anger of the people over the Singurs and Nandigrams of the previous CPI(M) government to its parliamentary ends. It is they who are now using the instruments of repression at their disposal in a hurry to prove themselves as faithful lapdogs of their class masters.

Comrades, Nonadanga has shown us the way. For, the sword of eviction hangs not just on a Nonadanga, or for that matter a Bhalaswa (Delhi). Today in India, 256 lakh people are homeless or live in abject conditions in slums, and this number is progressively on the rise. Forget jobs or providing decent education, the state is retreating from all its responsibilities of providing us with the cost of living and reproduction. Evicting us from our homes has become the norm, as the cities are restructured according to the needs of the ruling classes. In Delhi, Shiela Dixit’s Congress-led government has drawn up a list of 44 colonies to be evicted in the next few months- 33 in the first phase. The criteria for being allotted the meagre government flats is possession of voter identity card, aadhar card and ration card as of 2007, and a capacity to make a down-payment of Rs 80,000. We are thrown into these legalisms even as we suffer the already inadequate housing and water situation. Even in the six resettlement colonies in Delhi, the conditions are horrendous. When one of our comrades from Bhalaswa presented Delhi CM Shiela Dixit with a bottle of water from her area, the CM was at first deceived by the colour of the water to think that she was being offered Pepsi-cola to quench her thirst. People living in slums in various parts of the city are the ones who make the city what it is, who make the super-profits of the capitalists possible. It is these people who become an embarrassment for the government, whichever party is in power, and whatever their false election promises. We remember the spate of demolitions which was the run-up to the Commonwealth games 2010, and how the political managers of capital attempted to hide our ‘dirty’ dwellings and crush our then disunited voices of protest. This continues daily, even today. On 20th April 2012, the DDA with over 2000 police force, attempted to demolish and evict slum-dwellers from Gayatri Colony near Anand Parbat industrial area in Delhi, but were forced to retreat faced with the unity and resistance of the residents.

Even here in Delhi, we have daily struggled on the streets for our rights and demands. We have, however, also been disunited owing to our precarious existence and localised struggles. When in Kolkata, our brothers and sisters are fighting it out not merely for survival but for the right to live a dignified and free life, let us wish it all power and condemn the authoritarian actions of the government of West Bengal. Let us stand with them in solidarity, and also intensify our struggles at our own locations.

We condemn the action of the Trinamool-led West Bengal government and the brutal lathicharge on the Nonadanga residents and their supporters on April 4, and the threat of impending everyday violence. We also condemn the arrest and framing of activists who stand in support of the resistance.

WE DEMAND:

Immediate and unconditional release of all the activists arrested on April 8. Drop charges against all seven of them: Debolina Chakraborty, Samik Chakraborty, Abhijnan Sarkar, Debjani Ghoah, Manas Chatterjee, Siddhartha Gupta and Partha Sarathi Ray.

Drop the draconian UAPA and all charges on Debolina Chakraborty, and release her immediately and unconditionally.

The state must stop further harassment of residents and activists, and apologise to the people for having infringed upon its democratic right to organise and dissent; and take action against the police officers involved in the lathicharge on April 4.

The right to housing and rehabilitation of the slum-dwellers and hawkers in Nonadanga must be immediately ensured in a fair and just manner so that that their labour-power is not further devalued.

All construction in Nonadanga by the KMDA must come to an immediate halt. The eviction drive in the city, and the anti-people programme of neo-liberal capitalist development of which it is an integral part, must be stopped.

The process of slum-eviction in Delhi must be stopped immediately and inhabitants of the jhuggi-jhopri clusters in the city should be provided with adequate land, and respectable housing with clean drinking-water sources and proper sanitation amenities.

Join a protest demonstration outside
Banga Bhavan on 25 April 11.30 am

Sd/-
All India Federation of Trade Unions(New)
All India Students Association
All India Revolutionary Students Organisation
Bigul Mazdoor Dasta
Disha Chatra Sagathan
Inquilabi Mazdoor Kendra
Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association
Krantikari Naujawan Sabha
Krantikari Yuva Sangathan
Mazdoor Patrika
Mehnatkash Mazdoor Morcha
New Socialist Initiative
Peoples’ Democratic Front of India
Progressive Democratic Students Union
People’s Union for Democratic Rights
Posco Pratirodh Solidarity-Delhi
Radical Notes
Sanhati-Delhi
Shramik Sangram Committee
Students For Resistance
Vidyarthi Yuvajan Sabha

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Rockman and Satyam Auto workers continue their struggle despite the state’s insensitivity and brutality

April 24, 2012 by 2 Comments

Shankar Gopalakrishnan

At the moment the struggle of the Rockman and Satyam Auto workers in Dehradun continues. The 11 hunger strikers continue to resist forcefeeding though they have been forced into accepting drips for now. The way in which they were forced to do that should be apparent from the photos below, which were taken after the beating of these hunger strikers on Thursday night. It takes a special level of brutality to beat a group of extremely weak hunger strikers into submission.

It is understood that the DG of Police today informed a workers’ delegation (accompanied by representatives of Inquilab Mazdoor Kendra and Uttarakhand Nav Nirman Mazdoor Sangh) that he has directed an inquiry into this violence.

Meanwhile, the Uttarakhand government has shown no interest in holding the companies accountable.

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Dehradun Update: hunger strikers beaten, still resisting forcefeeding, workers’ protest continuing

April 22, 2012 by 2 Comments

Shankar Gopalakrishnan

The struggle of the Rockman and Satyam Auto workers is continuing in Dehradun. The 11 workers who have been on hunger strike since April 4th were transferred to the ICU of Doon Hospital on Thursday evening and then beaten up that night in order to force them to accept IV drips. One was beaten so badly that he began to bleed from his wounds. The workers resisted the IVs and repeatedly have tried to remove them; this battle is continuing. On Friday they registered a complaint against the beatings. The remaining 326 workers are still in the Parade Ground, Dehradun, after repeated rallies, and today another 40 workers were considering joining the hunger strike.

The management continues to ignore the struggle and the protests. The government has made no effort to reinitiate any dialogue. The workers demanded that the SDM tell them why this is happening, he professed ignorance and said he will check with his superiors.

Meanwhile, since practically the entire permanent workforce of both Rockman and Satyam Auto is out on strike, it has been something of a mystery as to how they continue to supply Hero Motors. It is understood that the three managements have reached an agreement whereby Hero has suspended its quality rules and are accepting the inferior parts being made by overworked and new contract workers that have been press-ganged into replacing the strikers. This is of course a betrayal of those who purchase Hero products and could have safety implications.

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Slum Demolition, lathicharge and arrests in Anand Parbat, Delhi

April 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Slum Razed Near Anand Parbat in West Delhi
DDA Calls in the Police in Large Numbers While Case is Still Pending in High Court
Activists and Slum Dwellers Lathi-charged and Arrested

On Friday, the 20th of April, agitated residents from the slum located in Gayatri Colony (Gulshan Chowk), near Anand Parbat industrial area, watched with horror and helplessness as bulldozers cleared away a large portion of the slum cluster. Resisting the sudden and brazen move of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), the impoverished residents of the slum tried to fight back and save their belongings. However, they were overpowered by a large deployment of Delhi Police.

The Police, numbering almost 3000, resorted to a brutal lathicharge. At this moment, the Police has left several injured, and has also arrested six activists of the Ghar Bachao Morcha. The Ghar Bachao Morcha was formed from amongst the slum dwellers of Anand Parbat last year in March, when the DDA had made similar attempts to displace the residents. Most of the residents of this slum cluster are impoverished workers who are employed in the nearby factories of Anand Parbat. Last year when the DDA’s designs of displacement became clear, the residents organized themselves under the banner of the Ghar Bachao Morcha, and had demonstrated outside the DDA headquarters in Vikas Sadan. Realizing that the residents had filed a case in the High Court, the DDA temporarily withdrew its offensive. However suddenly, despite the case pending in Court, a demolition drive has begun again.

Apart from the six activists arrested, several residents of the slum were detained. Nevertheless, due to the pressure of the residents’ agitation, the DDA has, as of now, withdrawn from the site. Since the slum dwellers gheraoed the Anand Parbat thana, the Police were compelled to release the six activists from Ghar Bachao Morcha.

Unfortunately, a bleak future looms ahead of the slum dwellers, as even judicial proceedings fail to offer them protection and respite from the clutches of a building corporation determined to push through high income housing projects and construction of malls and shopping arcades. Housing for the poor and protection of their existing residence is hardly of concern to the urban development authorities. Realizing this, the slum dwellers are all the more determined to keep their struggle going so as to protect their right of residence in the city.

Alok Kumar
Convenor
Ghar Bachao Morcha
House No.T-44, Near Gopal Dairy, Baljeet Nagar, New Delhi-110008.
Mobile: 9313730069

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Delhi: Protest Demonstration and Memorandum in solidarity with Haridwar workers (April 17)

April 17, 2012 by 1 Comment

Today (April 17), a joint protest demonstration was organized in front of the Uttarakhand Niwas, Chnakyapuri. The protestors raised slogans against the management of Satyam Auto and Rockman Auto Pvt Ltd, and the anti-labour Uttarakhand government. They strongly condemned the brutal lathicharge on struggling workers, and their illegal detention in various jails acroos Dehradun. Members of the following organizations were present: Inqulabi Mazdoor Kendra, Mehnatkash Mazdoor Morcha, AIFTU(New), Mazdoor Ekta Kendra, Krantikari Lok Adhikar Sangathan, Uttarakhand Nav Nirman Mazdoor Sangh, Mazdoor Patrika, Krantikari Naujawan Sabha, PDFI, Pragatisheel Mahila Ekta Kendra, TUCI, Radical Notes

A five member delegation handed over the following memorandum to the Resident Commissioner of Uttarakhand.

Dated: 17.04.2012

To
The Residence commissioner
Uttarakhand Bhawan,
Govt. of Uttarakhand
New Delhi

Sub:- Memorandum on behalf of Mass organizations in solidarity with workers of Rockman Industries pvt. Ltd. & Satyam Auto component Ltd.

Sir,

We are in solidarity with the workers of Rockman Industries pvt. Ltd. & Satyam Auto component Ltd. of SIDCUL Haridwar who are on path of agitation for their trade union demands from management. Labor department and state government is well aware with the rampant violation of labor laws in these companies like other industries situated in SIDCUL, however they do not feel any necessity to intervene in the matter to check the super exploitation of workers by the management. Contrary to their administrative responsibility assigned under the law of the land, they are hobnobbing with the management and resorted to repress the workers movement.

On 15.04.2012 workers who were on Anshan w.e.f. 06.04.2012 in capital city of Dehradoon were lathicharged and detained under various penal provisions. 326 workers are in jail and 11 were forcibly hospitalized. Management who is responsible for industrial unrest is moving freely and hobnobbing with newly elected congress government which is determined to crush worker’s movement like Haryana and other states.
Uttarrakhand government claims that after formation of new state it has gone ahead with industrialization of the state and in order to do so, SIDCUL has been established in different parts of the state like, Haridwar, Rudrapur, Pantnagar etc. However we have found that these are hell for the workers. No Job security, no wage norm, no labor law and sheer exploitation of the workers are only norm in these industrial areas of Uttarkhand. It is tax heaven for the investors and corporate and hell for the workers. Casualization and contract system that too, illegal contract system is norm in the industrial belt of uttarakhand.

The above named industrial units are major vendor of Honda motor co. , which do not adhere to the labor norms. Illegal contract system is going on in these factories and workers are forced to work on lower wages upto 12 hours a day. Workers in these units of Haridwar are paid only Rs. 6000 P.M. by the co. for the similar work , which get Rs. 12000/ per month in gurgaon plant of the co. Workers are deprived of basic right to form union of their own choice. 5 leading workers were terminated since they had taken initiative to form union and put forward their wage related demands. Around 600 workers of Rockman industries are on strike 18th March 2012 however labor department and civil administration is unmoved by the agitation of the workers. Both regular and contract workers joined the strike for furtherance of their demand.

We condemn police atrocity on striking workers and demand that:-
1. Police officials responsible for lathicharge on workers and illegal detention of workers be reprimanded and charge sheeted.
2. Labor minister of Uttarakhand Government resolve the labor dispute by calling a meeting of agitating workers and management of Rockman Industries pvt. Ltd. & Satyam Auto component Ltd.
3. Restore labor laws in Rockman Industries pvt. Ltd. & Satyam Auto component Ltd as well as in other industries in Uttarakhand.
4. Terminated workers of Rockman Industries pvt. Ltd. be reinstated without any condition.
5. Illegal contract system be abolished.
6. Management of Rockman Industries pvt. Ltd. & Satyam Auto component Ltd. be punished for violation of labor laws.
7. Workers of Rockman Industries pvt. Ltd. & Satyam Auto component Ltd. be paid wages proportionate to the workload and they should be paid overtime as required under law.

• Inqulabi Mazdoor Kendra
• Mehnatkash Mazdoor Morcha
• Mazdoor Patrika
• Krantikari Lok Adhikar Sangathan
• Krantikari Naujawan Sabha
• PDFI
• Pragatisheel Mahila Ekta Kendra
• Radical Notes

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Dehradun Update: 326 workers on hunger strike in jail

April 16, 2012 by Leave a Comment

An update on the ongoing struggle by Rockman and Satyam Auto workers in Uttarakhand. As reported yesterday, 326 workers are in jail and 11 hunger striking workers are detained in hospital. As of yesterday evening, all 326 workers in jail have joined the hunger strike. The 11 hunger strikers already in hospital have resisted force feeding. They are weakening but still in good health.

It is understood that the SDM has directed their detention until April 20th, though the legal provisions under which this has been done are not clear. The government has also announced to TV channels that the Labour Commissioner will be asked to intervene. Protests are planned today and tomorrow in Dehradun.
Shankar Gopalakrishnan

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