IT sector come under routine services: Left, TUs

New Delhi, Oct 31: Veteran Communist Jyoti Basu seeking exemption for IT sector from strikes notwithstanding, the Left parties and their labour wings today stated categorically that the sector came under the "routine" services, while urging the employees to participate in the upcoming December 14 All India general strike.

While CPI(M) Polit bureau member M K Pandhe asserted that his party Central Committee had already approved the employees right to strike in the IT sector, CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan maintained it could not be treated as 'essential services.' The leaders of the CITU, AITUC and the Centre for Coordination told sources that the IT sector was also like other professionals and industrial workers.

The debate within the Left parties and industrial sectors has got further impetus with former West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu last week seeking discussion on giving the sector the status of essential services so that it could be exempted from the strike.

Last September, following disruption of work in IT and ITes units, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had reportedly assured industry captains that the sector would not be affected by strikes in the future.

CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan said," As for as the right to strike is concerned, it is the fundamental right of the TUs under the concept of collective bargaining. There is no specific exemption except essential services." Mr Bardhan said the IT sector is also a routine industrial sector. It, too, could not be treated as an essential sector.

CPI National Secretary Shamim Faizi said the concept of collective bargaining in all its dimensions had to be applied in the IT sector as well.

Mr Pandhe, who also heads CITU, quoting the ILO, said without the right to strike the right to collective bargaining has no meaning.

He asserted that the Left parties had always demanded the workers rights to form unions in the IT sector and the Special Economic Zones as they had got a number of reports revealing" huge exploitation" by the employers.

AITUC National Secretary D L Sachdev said they are not in favour of declaring the IT sector as essential service and keep it out of the purview of the Industrial Disputes Act.

"This is necessitated as there is no appropriate or suitable factor on the basis of which it can be exempted from the strike," Mr Sachdev added.

TUCC Secretary G Devrajan said the workers in the IT sector were being exploited to the extent that they reeled under the inhuman contract system working over 14 hours a day.

"They don't get proper remuneration as they are recruited on piece meal basis and software areas," he added.

Reacting to new Labour minister Oscar Fernandes' assertion that he was equally concerned about labour issues as those of the Communist parties and the TUs, they cautioned him against certain sections in his own party which advocated for labour law reforms.

These so-called labour law reforms are nothing but open attempts to curtail workers' rights, their service conditions and emoluments.

"If the new Labour Minister is really concerned, he should ensure that all talks of Pension Funds being privatised should be stopped and the pending bills on provisions of social security for 370 million unorganised workers and the agricultural workers enacted," Mr Bardhan and Mr Faizi added.

Mr Pandhe said as a goodwill gesture Mr Fernandes should restore interest rate on the EPF to 9.5 per cent adding that he should also ensure that the meeting of the Indian Labour Conference (ILC) take place before the end of the current year and that the meeting of the Standing Committee of Parliament attached to his Ministry also take place.

UNI