The General Strike of Indian working class for which the call was given by the Central Trade Unions and endorsed by all the Federations and the Central and State Govt. Employees elicited the largest participation today. The increased participation of workers in the industrial action was indicative of the growing realization of the need to struggle against the present economic policies of the Govt. of India.
The Central Govt. employees throughout the country responded to the call admirably in as much as the strike was almost total in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Manipur and about 80% in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and partial in Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Arunachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa and Gujarat.
The strike was no doubt an impressive reflection of the total discontent of the employees over the various policy decisions like scrapping of the existing pension scheme, outsourcing, contractorisation and privatisation which have threatened the job security. The increasing prices of essential commodities had added to the agony and despite periodical wage increase through the system of Dearness Compensation, the employees found it difficult to make the both ends meet with the existing emoluments.
The FNPO and NUPE POSTMEN &Gr D/MTS while congratulating the Postal Employees in general for the total co-operation in making the strike action a grand success, who could make cent percent of their members to participate in the strike.
Sd/-
T.N.RAHATE
President FNPO
