Trade unions applaud social security bill

New Delhi, June 2 (UNI) All national and state level trade unions welcomed the Centre's move of bringing a Social Security Bill to fulfill the long pending demand of the workers of the unorganised sector in the country.

This was conveyed at a meeting held here today between the National Commission for Enterprises and the various trade union organisations.

The meeting was attended by All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) General Secretary Gurudas Dasgupta, CITU President M K Pandhe, CITU Secretary W R Vardharajan, HMS Secretary R A Mittal, President UTUC (LS) Krishna Chakravorty, NFITU Senior Vice-President O P Verma, BMS Member S P Sinha and AITUC Secretary S N Thakur.

At the meet intensive discussions were held with the trade union leaders on the proposed bill.

Earlier in the week, the Commission also visited West Bengal and put forth its recommendations to the state government and the Trade Union representatives there. It may be recalled that the commission has recommended a set of national minimum social security measures, which are protective in nature.

These measures are intended to complement the promotional measures, which the government is undertaking or planning to undertake.

The Central and State Trade Unions as well as the State of West Bengal appreciated the comprehensive report prepared by the Commission. They pointed out that social security for unorganised workers had been a long standing demand of all Trade Unions and, therefore, they particularly welcomed the proposed legislation which would give a legal backing to the National Social Security Scheme.

They felt that this would be the first step towards comprehensive social protection for the workers, both for deficiency or capability deprivation and adversity in the sense of absence of adequate fallback mechanisms (safety nets) to meet such contingencies as ill health, accident, death, and old age.

While highlighting the need for expeditious implementation of the proposed bill, they suggested that adequate funds should be raised to finance this national minimum social security programme for which the Finance Minister should be able to make budgetary provision of roughly 0.20 per cent of the GDP or Rs.7,638 crore in the first year and 0.48 per cent of the GDP or Rs.25,402 crore in the fifth year.

All Trade Unions suggested that for the purpose of funding all units in the organised sector should be subjected to a small uniform tax. All major Trade Unions including, CITU, AITUC and INTUC also recommended that together with the tax on units, all employees of organised sector should make some contribution to the Fund for social security benefits of the unorganised workers.

They were of the view that the contribution of the workers should be further reduced; that benefits should be enhanced to cover the genuine needs of the unorganised workers and that vigilance machinery should be set up to monitor the implementation of the scheme.

UNI BKS CS VV1925