An attack on one is an attack on all!

Call of the Central Committee of Communist Ghadar Party of India, 8 September, 2009

While talking endlessly about its concern for the “aam aadmi” or common man, the second Manmohan Singh government is preparing to launch an all-sided offensive against the rights and living standards of workers, who constitute the largest and most rapidly growing class in our country. 

Public sector workers, for instance, are facing serious threats to their working conditions and to their unity.  Following publication of a report by the government appointed Rao Committee, there are concerted efforts going on to drive down wages in various units, by linking wage rates to the profitability of individual companies. The government is also preparing to introduce a Bill in Parliament to exempt enterprises with less than 40 regular employees on payroll from all reporting and registering requirements. This in effect means liberating thousands of capitalists from having to comply with labour laws and regulations of any kind. Other measures are also being contemplated, including amending the Contract Labour Act in favour of capitalist employers.

All the major workers’ unions and their central federations have begun serious appraisal of the situation. The times are demanding a free and frank discussion within the working class movement. We must face up to facts and draw appropriate lessons from past experience.

One of the main lessons to be drawn is that the working class movement needs to be led by revolutionary politics and not the politics of class conciliation.  Setting the political aim of workers as the electoral victory of this or that party or coalition has blunted the struggle against the bourgeoisie and divided the working class on the basis of party rivalry.

The problem is not merely that the Congress and BJP do this. Major sections of the communists have also promoted the same kind of politics. They have advocated alliance with the Congress Party or some other capitalist party in the name of preventing BJP from coming to power. Such parties have fostered the illusion that there can be a common minimum programme in the service of capitalists and workers.  This has resulted in diversion and weakening of the struggle of the working class against the bourgeois offensive in recent decades.It has assisted the bourgeoisie in intensifying the exploitation of the working class.

Intensified exploitation and violation of rights

The past 24 years, since the modernisation and globalisation drive began and was followed by the so-called reform program of liberalisation and privatisation, has been a period of rapidly rising degree of exploitation of labour in India.

Official data show that the annual value created by the toil of workers in registered manufacturing industry rose from Rs. 22,600 crore in 1985/86 to Rs. 311,900 crore in 2005/06.  The portion pocketed by the owners of capital in the form of profits, interest and rent (together called surplus value), rose much faster than what was paid to the workers as wages and salaries (called labour income).

The surplus value extracted by capital, as a ratio of the labour income paid to the workers, is called the degree of exploitation of labour. This has risen between 1985 and 2005 from 79% to 252% in the units covered by the Annual Survey of Industries.  The ASI covers registered industrial units, where a significant part of the workers are unionized and capable of using legal means to defend their rights.  There is no official data on the degree of exploitation of labour in agriculture and services sectors, nor in the unregistered part of industry, where most workers are not unionised and have no access to legal protection of any kind.

One of the main ways in which the bourgeoisie has intensified the exploitation of workers in recent decades is by ‘out-sourcing’, and others forms of expanding the scope for contractual employment.  The use of short-term contracts in place of regular employment has become the fashion in all sectors of the economy. More and more workers are denied many rights and benefits that are legally provided for regular employees. The official data show that more than 50% of employees are contract workers even in public sector companies, which are touted as “model employers”.  The ratio is even higher in the majority of private companies. While the Contract Labour Act stipulates that only some functions can be contracted out, more and more capitalists have been allowed to flout this law and resort to contractual employment on a massive scale.

The capitalists have deployed nefarious means to prevent the formation of workers’ unions in the rapidly growing modern sectors. One method has been by creating so-called special export zones and special economic zones, or SEZs. Workers are brought into these fenced special zones by buses, with security guards instructed not to allow entry of any trade union activist or communist organizer. Workers in such special zones are subject to a special administrative arrangement; they are not covered by the labour regulation and conciliation machinery available to other workers in registered units.

An age-old method adopted by capitalists to step up the degree of exploitation is by extending working hours per day and per week. While the legal limit is 48 hours per week, more and more sectors have been exempted from this provision. Millions of workers are being made to work for much longer hours, not only in small-scale units but by large operators in IT and IT enabled services, in the media, BPOs and many rapidly growing sectors.  The already weak mechanisms for enforcing labour rights have been further weakened in the name of eliminating the ‘inspector raj’ and improving the ‘investment climate’ for the capitalists.

Successive governments in New Delhi, led by different parties and coalitions, have played an enabling role for the capitalists to extract more out of the working class. The Congress Party led governments of Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao launched the modernisation drive, followed by the liberalisation and privatisation program.  The first Disinvestment commission was created during the United Front government headed by Deve Gowda, which was supported by the CPI and CPI(M).  The Ministry of Disinvestment was created during the Vajpayee government, which launched what it called ‘second generation reforms’ to further accelerate the pace of capitalist growth through more intense exploitation and plunder of our land and labour.  The first Manmohan Singh government continued to facilitate the capitalist offensive against the working class, while claiming that it was implementing reforms with a ‘human face’, allegedly keeping the aam aadmi in mind!

The Economic Survey of 2008-09, prepared by the Ministry of Finance following the re-election of a Congress Party led government headed by Manmohan Singh, has put forward the proposal to establish 60 hours per week as the legal norm. If this is implemented, the big capitalist corporations will immediately gain crores of rupees by avoiding payment of over-time rates for all work beyond 48 hours per week.  Workers in the largest firms will be forced to work more for less pay, which will increase the pressure on workers in smaller firms. Extending the legal limit will enable the capitalist class to further intensify the exploitation of the entire working class.

Propaganda offensive

The anti-labour offensive has been backed by an ideological offensive to justify super-exploitation without limits. The bourgeoisie and its politicians have spread the notion that for India to become globally competitive, it is essential for workers to submit to more intense exploitation than before.  There is no alternative to lowering labour standards in order to improve profitability and productivity and even survival of enterprises in a competitive market – this has been the mantra of the bourgeoisie.  Workers who are facing privatisation or closure have been told to consider themselves lucky if they get a lump sum of money as compensation for losing their jobs.

The bourgeoisie and its ideologues argue that the existing labour laws are “over-protecting” workers in registered units. They argue that reducing the level of protection and rights of workers will attract more capital investment and increase employment. They argue that since majority of workers are in unregistered units, which are not covered by the labour laws, they should welcome the pro-capitalist reforms.  They question why a minority of workers should get something that others do not have.

It is of course an indisputable fact that only a minority of workers are currently covered by central laws such as the Industrial Disputes Act, Contract Labour Act, Factories Act, Trade Unions Act, Shops & Establishments Act, and other acts. However, it is to be noted that even this minority adds up to several lakhs of workers with long experience in struggling for their rights and using legal means wherever possible.  They are the most advanced section of the working class, acting as a model that can inspire other workers to also form unions and resist super-exploitation. In attacking the rights of the most organised sections of workers, such as the employees in public sector industries, the Manmohan Singh government’s aim is to facilitate intensified exploitation of all sections of the working class.

The bourgeoisie has so far managed without reforming the main central labour laws. In many cases, they have used state governments to change state level laws and regulations to facilitate the intensification of exploitation. For instance, various state governments have amended laws and regulations to permit hiring women workers on night shifts.

The capitalists think the time has now come to tackle the central laws as well. They want to achieve multiple objectives by doing so.  One objective is to establish a new benchmark so as to further raise the degree of exploitation and the rate of capitalist profit. Another objective is to create a legal framework for expanding capitalist super-exploitation, so that global corporations do not have to resort to extra-legal means and bribe officials and inspectors.

The arguments and propaganda of the bourgeoisie are aimed at splitting the working class into numerous factions, like organised and unorganised, registered and unregistered, those working in profit making companies versus those in loss making ones, etc.  They try to isolate particular sections and attack their rights. Workers cannot afford to fall for this trick. An attack on any section of the class must be treated as an attack on all. Lowering the standard of the most advanced section is aimed at lowering the standard of the entire class.

Response of the Working Class

More and more leaders and activists of workers’ unions are beginning to recognize the need to overcome the weaknesses of the past. A frank discussion of both strengths and weaknesses of the working class movement has become essential, in order to respond effectively to the bourgeois offensive today.

There are both positive and negative examples that need to be summed up and appropriate lessons drawn.  When the second generation reform program was launched officially by the Vajpayee led NDA government in January 2000, with the sale of Modern Foods Industries Limited, the workers of this enterprise put up a long and courageous struggle. They challenged, through legal means and street actions, the right of the central government to sell public assets to a private party of its choice.  Their example inspired others to take up the struggle against privatisation, including the workers of Bharat Aluminium Company, or BALCO, as well as NALCO and several other public sector companies.

On the other hand, the working class has suffered as a result of its struggle being subordinated to some narrow agenda of this or that party to serve its parliamentary tactics.  In March 2004, the countrywide strike of public sector workers in defence of the right to strike showed the fighting mood of the class.  Instead of building further on this and advancing on the path of united struggle, a different agenda was imposed by the CPI(M) and others who united with the Congress Party in the Lok Sabha elections that year, in the name of preventing the BJP from coming to power. This served to spread confusion, divert and dissipate the workers’ anger and weaken their united struggle against the capitalist reform program.

Looking back, it must be recognised that the participation of CPI(M) and CPI in the first Manmohan Singh government during 2004-09 served to weaken, not strengthen, the struggle of workers against the bourgeois offensive.  It served to spread harmful illusions such as the notion that capitalist reforms can be implemented with a ‘human face’, and that there can be a ‘common minimum program’ for the bourgeoisie and the working class.

The subordination of trade unions to the parliamentary tactics of different parties has created a lot of damage to the cause of the working class.  Workers’ protests have frequently been stepped up or toned down depending on whether the party leading the protest was in alliance or in opposition to the party in power.

An important lesson from the negative experience of the past is that the struggle of the working class must be directed against the capitalist class, which is the main enemy.  The struggle against the bourgeois class and its offensive must be waged uncompromisingly, no matter which party is running the government at the centre and in any state.

The immediate struggle to defend and further extend the rights of workers must be waged with the strategic aim of overpowering and dislodging the bourgeois class from power.  Only a united working class, led by a united communist movement, and allied with the peasants and all the oppressed sections of society, can accomplish the task of overthrowing bourgeois rule, burying capitalism and establishing socialism.

Socialism is a system oriented to provide prosperity and protection for all members of society, by eliminating all forms of exploitation of one person by another.  The working people will have first claim on what they produce; they will decide on how much their incomes can be raised, while providing adequately for social spending and investments for the future. There will be no place for parasites who want to flourish at the expense of the majority.  Such a system will ensure that the rights of all those who work are made universal, inviolable in theory and guaranteed in practice.

The Communist Ghadar Party of India calls on all communists and all trade union activists to learn the lessons from the past, and unite firmly against the anti-worker offensive of the bourgeoisie and the Manmohan Singh government!  Let us defend the rights of all sections of workers, based on the principle that an attack on one is an attack on all!