Any legislation against working class not to be tolerated

Barrackpore, Jun 30 (UNI) West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today reminded the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre that his government would not support any legislation that could go against the interests of the working class people.

Echoing the Centre of Indian Trade Unions call for mass movement, Mr Bhattacharya called upon all the national trade unions to fight against the Centre's anti-labour policies.

Addressing the open session of the 6th West Bengal Construction Workers Union state conference here, the Chief Minister said the Left Front government under no circumstance would allow anti-labour act that could victimise workers and labourers.

He said the state would act against the errant jute barons who had been cheating workers' by not depositing their provident fund which was being deducted from their wages.

Jute mill owners have been committing criminal offence and the state will arrest them by anyway, he said.

He said, '' Trade union rights cannot be curbed under any circumstance and the system of collective burgaining will continue.

'' Expressing sympathy with the deprived workers in the society, the Chief Minister said nobody bothered about the welfare of the crores of labourers in the unorganised sectors who had been contributing to all the constructions works undertaken in the private and public sectors.

His government was the only government which had taken up a logistic scheme bringing them under its fold to provide contributory provident fund scheme instituting a Welfare Board.

They would be provided with financial benefits from the Welfare Fund introduced accumulating one per cent cess from all private and public projects carrying more than Rs 10 lakh project cost.

Mr Bhattacharjee claimed that only 20 per cent people of West Bengal remained under the poverty level and the Left Front government was determined to look after them despite existence of present market economy that never helped the poor of the society.

Earlier, CITU president M K Pandhe called upon the working class people in the country to fight against all odds to protect the trade union rights. He also called for a nationwide chakka jam agitation to protest the UPA government's anti-people acts and policies in near future.

West Bengal Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta and the CITU general secretary Chittabrata Majumder also spoke in the opening session of the 3-day state conference of the construction workers.

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