Call of Mazdoor Ekta Committee, 9 May 2025
Comrade workers
Workers’ organisations have called for an All-India General Strike on 20 May 2025. Through this strike action, we workers want to tell the Central and state governments that we refuse to accept the onslaught they are carrying out on our rights, in the name of improving the “ease of doing business”. We refuse to accept that whatever is best for the capitalists is best for the country. No, what is best for the capitalists is against the interests of workers and peasants. It is against the interests of the whole of Indian society.
Successive governments at the centre and in the states have been implementing the program of globalization through liberalisation and privatisation during the past 34 years. The result has been an enormous growth in the wealth of super-rich capitalists. It has led to ever more intense exploitation of workers, robbery of peasants and ruination of other small producers.
Central and state governments have taken many steps to deprive us of our rights. Outsourcing and employment of contract workers, without any legal protection of labour rights, has become a widespread practice in both public and private companies. Many workers are paid much less than the the statutory minimum wages declared by governments. Many workers are forced to work 12 hours a day. Lakhs of workers are working as gig workers, with absolutely no social security.
For many years, the capitalist class had been demanding changes in labour laws to deprive us of our rights and facilitate our super-exploitation. Such changes were first enacted by several state governments. Then the BJP government at the centre used its parliamentary majority to get four all-India Labour Codes enacted in 2019 and 2020.
These labour codes deprive us workers of rights we have won through many decades of struggle. They deprive us of the right to organise and form unions of our choice. They make it far more difficult to go on strike, which is the most effective weapon we have against our employers. They deprive the vast majority of workers of any form of social security. They allow capitalists to hire and fire workers at will. They allow capitalists to hire the majority of workers on temporary contracts, and to flagrantly violate safety norms in workplaces. They allow the capitalist to extend the working hours beyond 8 hours per day and 48 hours per week.
Several state governments are aggressively implementing the proposed anti worker changes in the labour codes. In many states, capitalists hiring less than 300 regular workers can now retrench workers without any need to get government approval. Earlier, this limit was 100 workers. Many states have changed the law so that contractors who hire 50 workers or less are not covered by the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act 1970. This Act places restrictions on the hiring of contract labour for jobs of a perennial nature. It also required that the principal employer ensure certain facilities for the contract workers. Earlier, this law was applicable to any contractor who hired more than 20 workers on contract. The definition of a factory has changed — if a factory employs less than 20 workers, it is not covered under factories act. The majority of states and UTs have changed the law to allow women to work in night shifts in factories.
Many states are now considering introducing a law that will require all workers to give advance notice of a strike, which has so far been required only in public sector companies.
Both the Central and state governments are implementing the privatisation program. Privatisation is a program to hand over public assets and services to private companies. It has been implemented in different forms and under different names including disinvestment, monetization, and public-private partnership (PPP). Its aim is to convert essential public assets and services into sources of maximum capitalist profits. It has made many essential goods and services too expensive and out of reach for many working people. It has worsened the conditions of workers in the railways, coal mines, electricity, telecommunications, banking, education, health and many other sectors.
Comrade workers,
The times are calling on us to unite as one mighty force and step up the struggle against the capitalist exploiters and their governments.
The laws and government regulations divide us into formal and informal workers, regular and temporary workers, organised and unorganized workers. The political parties of the bourgeoisie try to divide us based on religion and caste. Let us rise above all the divisions which the capitalist class and its parties impose on us!
Let us strengthen our unity around our own program! Workers’ organisations have put forth a charter of immediate demands. Let us escalate the struggle for their fulfilment!
Life experience has shown that elections in the existing political system is a competition among various parties of the capitalist class. They compete for the opportunity to manage the rule of the capitalist class. We cannot expect governments formed by such parties to fulfill our demands.
Workers and peasants make up more than 90 percent of the population, but we have no power in this system. We have no say in deciding the laws and policies. The real ruler of the country is the capitalist class. Capitalists use elections to select one or another of their trusted parties to run the government. They select that party which can most effectively implement the capitalist program, while fooling the people that it is acting in their best interest.
We have to fight with the political aim of changing the entire political system, replacing the rule of the capitalist class by workers’ and peasants’ rule. With political power in our hands, we must take over the principal means of production from the hands of the capitalist class and place them under social control. Only then can we ensure that all our rights are guaranteed and all our longstanding demands are fulfilled.
Comrade workers,
This strike is part of the preparation for bigger battles in the future, against the capitalist class and its governments.
Mazdoor Ekta Committee calls upon the workers of all sectors to organise for the success of the 20 May All-India General Strike. Let us resolve to advance the struggle for our rights, with the exciting perspective of ushering in workers’ and peasants’ rule!