the NEWS syndicate
National Secretary of All India Trade Union Congress Sri Rama Krushna Panda has called upon the people of Orissa to make Bhasha Andolan a success by joining the unique movement and/or associating themselves with it by any means they like; because, on its success, depends emancipation of the working class from exploitation that goes on under laws not understood by them.
Addressing Orissa “live” from the Facebook page of Bhasha Andolan on the 17th , Sri Panda came down heavily on the Government over their anti-working-class attitude and activities and said, labor laws created and promulgated in English is the main obstacle to labor welfare, as the workers, not conversant with English, are not aware of what legal benefits they are entitled to. They suffer in their disputes against exploiting managements as their mother tongue is not used in laws relating to them and in conciliation or adjudication.
AITUC the first trade union organisation of India established in 1920 had ushered in, even during the British days, organisational rights for the working class by way of formation and promulgation of Trade Union Act in 1926. That, in 1946 the foreign government agreed to make adequate leisure a legal right of the workers and limited working hours to 8 in a man-day with rest and weekly off days, was not an easy achievement. Sad, the anti-workers government of the day has ruined that achievement and pushed the workers back into 1946 condition by imposing a 12 hour working compulsion, which would, while jettisoning one-third workers from the factories, force the rest into further exploitation, said the national leader of the working class.
The heroic battle of the working class for job safety had made the country create 44 Acts to stop exploitation; but the government of the day, hand in glove with the exploiters, have made them inconsequential, as the workers are to seek redress of their grievances in only 4 contrived codes, which codified in language unknown to the workers appear more a conundrum than a help.
Jargon like “Service Provider” is clamped on workers putting job-security of 92% of them in quagmire of uncertainty, making their entitlement to fair labor practice a matter of the past, he pointed out.
Unless all the laws relating to labor are available in Oriya, and labor offices, Courts/Tribunals relating to labor-law implementation are made to work in Oriya language, emancipation of wage earners from official and private exploitation would remain impossible, he said, while lauding the Bhasha Andolan for its years-long constant campaign for transaction of all official, legal and commercial work in Oriya by legislating the proposal it’s founder had given the government about five years ago.
His “live” speech in Facebook is placed in the YouTube platform of this site for people beyond that media to peruse and cogitate. Below is the same: