INTUC appeals to Centre to stop exodus of skilled labour

Pondicherry, Aug 27: The Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) today urged the Centre to take steps immediately to stop the exodus of skilled labourers to foreign countries.

A resolution to this effect was adopted at the national executive committee meeting here, INTUC national President G Sanjeev Reddy said at a press conference.

Mr Reddy said India would face shortage of skilled man power in the next five years as skilled labourers were going to other countries for better prospects. The Centre should stop this tendency by paying them good salary in both the public and private sectors.

He said the meeting also called for proper implementation of labour laws. A wrong notion stressing the implementaion of labour laws, would lead to investors going to other countries, was created by the industrial units here and added that there was no connection between labour laws and investment as investors preferred India because of the market and cheap labour, among other things.

The meeting also appealed to the Centre to initiate stringent action against units which failed to implement labour laws properly.

Mr Reddy said INTUC did not belive in strikes and agitations and was demanding only profit making units to ensure the prosperity of the worker class. As per the Bonus Act, more than 50 per cent of the profit should be utilsed for bonus and higher wages for employees. However, because of the ceiling on bonus, a worker could not get more than Rs 3,500. The INTUC had called on the Prime Minister and urged him to remove this ceiling or introduce a new Bonus Act, which he had agreed to consider.

Mr Reddy said INTUC also wanted the provident contribution by both the employee and the employer to be 15 percent from 12 per cent.

Alleging that thousands of crores subsidy on yarn was being eaten away by middlemen and the weavers were in no way benefitted, he said INTUC had called for financial assistance of Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 for handloom weavers for five years from the Centre. This should be reviewed after five years.

On the sixth pay commission recommendations, he said that a chairman should be appointed forthwith and work should be started for its implementation and INTUC demands the provision of Rs 1,000 as interim relief till the recommendations were implemented.

He also pointed out that the Rs 17,000 crore required for the implementation of the recommendations could be mobilised because of the enhancement in the GDP in several areas including the railways.

Mr Reddy said the INTUC had called for the abolition of contract labour system and it had represented this to the Prime Minister on August 19 and submitted a four- point formula. He said INTUC wanted the interest of the unorganised sector labourers be protected. As per the Arjun Singh Gupta committee report, about Rs 36,000 crore was required to protect the interest of the unorganised sector labourers, for which the INTUC had submitted three suggestions.

He said a cess should be levied on the most profit making corporate sector and the money collected from it should be utilised for unorganised sector labourers.

It also suggested that one per cent salary of all the regular employees in the country be deducted and contributed towards the cause for the welfare of unorganised workers and the Centre should bear the rest, he added.

He said Pondicherry had developed industrially and a strong INTUC was the need of the hour to maintain industrial peace. The INTUC would ask the Centre to give special attention to Pondicherry.

He said about 265 delegates from all over the country had participated in the meeting and the next meeting would be held in Assam in November or December.

UNI