Himachal: CITU to protest Centre’s policies

Shimla, June 23

The Centre of Indian Trade Union (CITU) will stage a statewide protest in all district and block headquarters of the state against the “anti-worker, anti-farmer, anti-employee, and anti-people policies” of the Central government on July 12.

This was decided at a meeting of the state committee of CITU, held here today under the chairmanship of CITU state president Vijender Mehra. He said at the meeting that through demonstrations, CITU would raise the demands of declaring a minimum wage of Rs 26,000 for workers, repealing of four labour codes, cancelling projects like National Monetisation Pipeline, Agniveer, Ayudhveer, Koylaveer, besides other fixed-term employment schemes and against discontinuation of benefits like Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF), Employee Pension Scheme (EPS), Employees Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme (EDLI), regularisation of all types of workers, including contract, part-time, multi-purpose, multi-task, temporary, casual, fixed-term, and outsourcing systems, besides demands.

He said due to the Centre’s “neoliberal and pro-capitalist” policies, unemployment, poverty and inequality were on the rise. “Unemployment and inflation are also on the rise and prices of petrol, diesel, cooking gas and food items are skyrocketing,” he added.

Mehra further said that the Modi government’s “anti-worker policies” would be exposed on issues such as privatisation and disinvestment in public enterprises, National Monetisation Pipeline, Agnipath scheme and many other issues.