INDIAN WORKERS FIGHT RAIL PRIVATISATION

14 R ail workers' unions in India are planning indefinite strike action on over 100 train routes under consideration for privatisation by the government. Demanding that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led (BJP) government rescind its plans to privatise Indian Railways, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has already been joined by other mass organisations for a two- day national protest in July. Local protests have also been held in spite of restrictions on mobilisations due to the corona pandemic following the Railway Ministry’s exercise for a competitive bidding process for selecting private entities for operating passenger train services at over 109 pairs of stations. Opposition parties including Congress, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, and other left parties and Trinamool Congress have all denounced the privatisation move on many different grounds. The government has been claiming that privatisation would raise money for the modernisation of the industry and would generate employment despite global evidence to the contrary over decades. CITU general secretary Tapan Sen said that government claims of increased investment and employment generation had no meaning as the drainage due to the loss of revenue to the Indian Railways in these revenue-generating routes and high-speed trains will more than neutralise any supposed benfits. He said that the employment lost due to privatisation of production units, the jewels of Indian Railways, in the railway workshops, and in the maintenance units will be many times more than the employment created by the private players. “Most of the jobs that will be created will be precarious jobs, not permanent jobs with decent wages and social security,” he said. All India Railwaymen’s Federation (AIRF), the largest recognised transport trade union, has demanded that the government take steps to cancel the proposal to privatise 109 routes. AIRF has urged the railway board to cancel the bidding process threatening with an indefinite strike, while the affiliate trade union Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh has observed a week-long protest demonstration across a handful of states. “The two-day protest will be followed by a joint meeting of all central trade unions to decide upon the future course of action of the trade union movements on the privatisation of railways and other anti-people policies of the BJP government,” said AR Sindhu of CITU. The South Central Railway Mazdoor Union (SCRMU) affiliated to AIRF has also held protest rallies across Telugu states opposing privatisation while backing an indefinite strike against the government’s privatisation drive. Dakshin Railway Employees Union (DREU), affiliated to CITU, has also organised protests at railway stations in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. In West Bengal, the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) held protest demonstrations across districts against privatisation and the removal of vacant posts in the railways. The last major strike by railway workers launched by AIRF which continued for three weeks in 1974 is considered one of the largest ever railway strikes in Asia.  PROTESTS: Trade unionists in in Kolkata protesting against the privatisation of Indian railways INDIAN WORKERS FIGHT RAIL PRIVATISATION