Saturday 17 January 2015

Typical of Fascism!


Commenting on the reckless handling of the strike by transport workers in the State by the ADMK regime, CITU Tamil Nadu leader A.Soundararajan MLA said for ending the struggle the doors of talks should be opened and not the doors of prisons. He accused the ADMK government of following Fascist principles and adopting oppressive methods.
What is typical of Fascism?
Many Indian researchers do believe that it was Thomas Macaulay, a pioneer of English education in India who proposed the idea of a typical Goebbelsian lie. In one of his addresses to British Assembly, he said that Indians are fools and we can easily play with their emotions with one simple rule. “Repeat a lie a thousand times and it becomes the truth”
Whether Thomas Macaulay was using this concept or not is a subject of debate. However, there is no doubt that Joseph Goebbels used this to arrange one of the anarchist campaigns of Nazi propaganda history. Goebbels believed that with constant repetition of ideas we can make people believe it, no matter whether the idea is a truth or not. He used this concept to make Germans believe that it is only Hitler who could save them from the worst conditions of their life. So also, the ADMK minions keep trying to use this concept to make people of Tamil Nadu believe that Jayalalitha is god-sent alleviator who could only save them from their worst conditions of their life. 
Now, in the absence of Jayalalitha at the secretariat but admittedly guided by her, Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam is adopting the same Fascist method of repeating many times to make it appear like truth, in handling the strike by State transport workers.
The State Transport Employees Federation moved the High Court for selecting trade unions for negotiations through secret ballot in STCs. As a result of the verdict in that case, union recognition election was conducted, in which securing 57 percent votes of workers (75,432) LPF union was recognized as the sole bargaining union for negotiations. Vide the High Court verdict, GO was issued for this recognition for five years up to October 2015. But after the ADMK came to power, it refused to invite and talk to LPF union. As the wage settlement ended with 31.8.2013 and new settlement had to be reached from 1.9.2013, demands were placed and asked for talks the administration did not invite for talks during the last 15 months.
The ADMK union moved the court for inviting them also for talks as they had received 12 percent votes, but no interim stay was ordered on the plea. Besides not inviting the sole bargaining union of the LPF for talks due to political animosity, the ADMK regime was spreading a false news the LPF had filed some case. In order to break the stalemate in the interests of wokers DMK President Kalaignar suggested to functionaries of LPF to call all trade unions for consultation, jointly place demands and see whether the regime came forward for talks at least then.
Accordingly, all trade unions joined together and invited the ADMK union also for preparing common demand, but the ruling party union rejected the plea. Hence all unions other than that of the ruling party submitted demands and asked the government to hold talks. But the regime again lied of a pending case and delayed. Hence all trade union jointly conducted a conference at Tiruchi on Dec 2 participated by 30,000 workers and according to the decision taken there issued strike notice signed by all to the management on Dec 5. But the management ignored and heroically claimed that the ADMK union had membership of 95,000 and hence they would defeat the strike.
Without inviting trade union representatives for talks on demands, the Chief Minister once again told a lie in the Assembly on 8.12.2014 that a case was pending in the court and announced an interim relief of Rs. 1,000 from 1.1.2015. Incensed by this announcement, gheraoed regional offices of STCs on 9.12.2014 and agitated.
Even after the strike was forced on the workers due to the indifferent attitude of the regime and people of the State were put into untold sufferings and difficulties, the Chief Minister and the ADMK regime remained reticent. It was highly condemnable that the Chief Minister and the Transport Minister had allowed the situation to reach this level failing to find a solution at the appropriate time realizing the difficulties over two crore people who voted them to power would have to undergo daily. 
The government, meanwhile, insisted that it could not invite all the trade unions for talks unless the Labour Progressive Federation (LPF), which has got the sole bargaining agent power, submitted a petition in the High Court stating that it does not mind inviting other unions for talks.
LPF general secretary M. Shanmugam countered the government’s argument. “In 2010, we were elected the sole bargaining agent, by winning majority of votes through secret ballot system. We are in power till October 2015. All of a sudden the transport officials say we do not have sufficient votes now and cannot be the sole bargaining agent,” he said, giving the background to the present impasse.
“The problem is now the government wants a no-objection letter from us. Subsequently, the officials said they will consult the Law Department and inform us on the talks by January end. Why should we wait more as it is already 15 months,” Shanmugam asks.
He said they have no objection to the government holding discussions with other unions and this has been given in writing to the other unions. A. Soundararajan, general secretary, CITU, admitted that the LPF had no objection in other unions being part of the discussion. “We had clarified this with the LPF as they are the sole bargaining agent,” he said.
Even on the third day of the strike on Dec 30, Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam repeated the lie that at present, a case was pending before the Supreme Court over the recognition of the LPF as the sole bargaining agent. Referring to the case, the Chief Minister said if the LPF agreed to file a petition before the Supreme Court “that the ADMK-affiliated ATP ‘constituted the majority of the workforce in transport corporations, this would facilitate negotiations with the striking trade unions”.
Reacting to the proposal LPF general secretary M. Shanmugam said, “Is it not ridiculous? Why should I go to the court when my union has been granted recognition for five years?” He contended that his organisation had made suggestions on how to resolve the legal impediment, if at all any.
Panneerselvam wondered how it would be possible to hold talks on wage revision when the matter was sub judice.
The same question was asked by the benami ADMK MLA (of RPI) Se.Ku.Tamilarasan in a debate on a television channel and he asked why could not a secret ballot be conducted now to ascertain the strength of the unions as the workers ‘had lost faith in the LPF’. The LPF leader Shanmugam countered him saying “You have been elected as MLA for five years. If somebody files a petition in the court saying that the people of your constituency had lost faith in you and ask for re-election, will you step down”. The benami ruling party MLA had no answer.
The truth is that the ADMK union had filed a petition in the court but no stay had been granted by the court to the operation of the earlier verdict. The motive of the ADMK regime is to prolong the time and thereby revert back to their original move of making the duration of wage settlement for five years from three years. Due to their political animosity they were resorting to all these Fascist methods of lying repeatedly and resorting to mindless suppression of the rights of workers. 

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