25 lakh employees in the state to strike work on Feb 28

Chennai:

Central, state and public sector units across the state will be hit on February as more than 25 lakh employees along with unorganized workers will go on a token strike from February 28 to protest against price rise and seeking amendment to Minimum Wages Act.

Addressing a press conference here on Friday, office-bearers of BSNL employees union, All India Insurance Employees Federation, Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers Tamil Nadu unit, Bank Employees Federation of India, Tamil Nadu Government Employees Association and All India Defence Employees Federation said that they will join the nationwide protest on February 28.

Interestingly, this is the 14^th such strike since the introduction of New Economic Policy (NEP) and this time even the Congress backed union Indian National Trade Union Congress is backing the protest.

Meanwhile, all the unions hailed the judgment passed by the Supreme Court on scrapping 2G telecom licences. BSNL Employees Union Chennai Circle secretary K Govindraj said that it has been the fruit of relentless work by the unions to expose the scam.

Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers Tamil Nadu unit general secretary M Duraipandian said the major demand of the unions is to contain price rise besides creation of National Social Security Fund with adequate resources in line with the recommendation of he National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS) and parliamentary standing committee on labour, stoppage of disinvestments in Central and state public sector units and universal social security cover for the unorganized workers without any restriction.

The unions also demanded strict enforcement of all basic labour laws without any exception or exemption and stringent punitive measures for violation of labour laws.