Rama Krishna Sangem
The national conference of the Working People’s Coalition (WPC) was successfully held from June 28 to 30 at Montfort Social Institute, Hyderabad. Over 180 delegates from 17 states and 25 sectors participated in the conference from all over India.
The deliberations and discussions were primarily focused on social security, workplace safety, wage theft, issues of women workers, ESI-EPF for informal sector workers, impact of climate change on working people, lack of regulations for digital platform workers and rental housing. Working people, particularly those from marginalized communities, confront impossible challenges today, according to a press release.
Their livelihoods have been profoundly affected by aggressive privatization, globalization, inflation, the impact of COVID-19 lockdown, and demonetization. This has been further exacerbated by the overhaul of labour laws, negligence of workplace safety, failure of labour governance. Lack of fair wages and rampant price rise has made workers’ lives immeasurably worse.
The prominent speakers in the conference included Prof. Kodandaram, MLC Telengana, Prof. Babu Matthew, National Law School, Bangalore, Brother Varghese, MSI, Hyderabad, Lissy Joseph, National Domestic Workers Federation, noted tradeunionist Meena Menon, feminist activist Jaya Velankar, advocate Gayatri Singh, Meena Seshu (SANGRAM), and C. Nicholas (Tamil Nadu Land Rights Network.) The conference elected a 16 member Working Committee and nominated the Executive Committee. The conference unanimously passed the new constitution of the network and the Resolution.
WPC to campaign for rights of informal sector workers:
National Minimum Wage, 2. Social Security, including ESI and PF, 3. Climate change impact and just transition, 4. Housing for all workers, including rental and industrial housing, 5. Digital platform workers, 6. Women’s work, The Conference also resolved to demand that government should introduce direct cash transfers to all informal labour registered on e-shram, or under various labour boards, in order to help working people can rise above the current crisis.
In response to unfair wages and other pertinent issues of workers, WPC has also decided to undertake a nationwide yatra starting from Kanyakumari and Kolkata to Delhi and a public rally in Delhi. Details about the dates and route will be announced in coming days.
Working Committee:
Meena Menon, Adv. Gayatri Singh, LA Samy/ MA Britto, Rajiv Khandelwal, Bro. Varghese Theckanath, Dharmendra Kumar, Prakash Kumar, Abdul Shakeel, Raju Bhise, Jaya Velankar, Shweta Damle, Sushovan Dhar, Raj Upadhyay, Aseem Mishra, Sunder Babu and Bilal Khan.
