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India: IUF affiliates join nationwide strike

11.01.20 News
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On January 8, IUF affiliates across India, together with tens of millions of rural workers, farmers, students and youth, joined the national strike called by national trade union centers against the anti-labour, socially regressive and anti-democratic policies of the Narendra Modi government. An estimated 250 million workers took part in the strike.
 
In the face of rising unemployment and an upsurge of poverty, the BJP government is driving through policies to restrict collective bargaining through labour law 'reforms', promote fixed-term casual employment and accelerate the privatization of public assets. The unions are demanding, among other measures an increase in the national minimum wage, a universal guaranteed monthly pension, a halt to the weakening of legislative labour protection, ratification of ILO Conventions 87 and 98 on freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, effective employment guarantees covering all urban and rural households and a halt to privatization coupled with an increase in public investment. The unions have also condemned the violence unleashed against citizens across India protesting government policies to promote communalism and discrimination.

Among the many IUF affiliates who took part pictured here are:

Schreiber Dynamix Dairies Employees Union and Imsofer Manufacturing Employees Union in Baramati, Maharashtra
 


Hotel Employees Federation of India in Chennai, Tamil Nadu
 


SEWA in Indore, Madhya Pradesh