DELHI UNION OF JOURNALISTS
F-29, New Central Market, Connaught Circus, New Delhi-110 001
Phone: 23413459
DUJ DENOUNCES OMINOUS LABOUR POLICY MOVES OF RAJASTHAN GOVERNMENT
The Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) and Delhi Press Initiative has castigated the Vasundhara Raje led government in Rajasthan for its total surrender to big business and media monopolies by seeking to virtually end the Industrial Disputes Act, Contract Labour Act and the Factories Act and demolish whatever security was left to employees. Ina statement to the press, DUJ President Sujata Madhok and Gen.Secretary S.K.Pande said that the exclusive report published in the Indian Express is more significant given the Indian Express Group’s continuous role in flouting labour laws in the country. The group has refused to pay fair wages to journalists and press workers as stipulated by the Wage Boards.
The DUJ notes with concern the shrinking of organized sector employment in the country. It points out that the present labour laws and the labour judiciary have been singularly ineffective in protecting the rights of workers. The DUJ asserts that the notion that labour laws stand in the way of increasing employment is a myth propagated by industry and an alibi for promoting a jobless pattern of economic growth. Reducing the few protections offered by the Industrial Disputes Act, the Contract Labour Act and the Factories Act will not lead to the sharp growth in employment predicted by the Rajasthan government. It will only promote arbitrary hire and fire policies. Restricting the right to form trade unions and other anti-labour policies, the DUJ warned, will only lead to an acceleration of conflicts between today’s young, better educated and aspirational workforce and exploitative employers. The DUJ calls upon the President not to give his assent to any changes in state level laws that reduce the rights and protections offered to a working class already impoverished by inflation. DUJcalls for the broadest possible unity of trade unions, human rights bodies and conscious citizens to challenge the anti-labour policies being propagated by industry think tanks obsessed with a neo-liberal agenda.
(Sujata Madhok)
President
(S K Pande)
General Secetary