| LIC employees hold demonstration, to observe two days' strike | | |  Early Times Report
Jammu, Jan 7: LIC employees held demonstrations in front of all the offices of Jammu and Kashmir in preparation of TWO DAYS' nationwide strike on January 8th and 9th against the anti-worker, anti-people policies of the NDA govt and force the reversal of anti-worker policies of the Central Govt.
Speaking on the occasion, Com. Pawan Gupta Divisional Secretary NZIEA Srinagar Division appealed the insurance employees to participate in the said strike The Working class of the country has been demanding for a fairly long period of time for concrete measures for arresting rising prices of essential commodities, creation of decent and new jobs, minimum wage of Rs.18000/- p.m. and minimum pension of Rs.6000/- p.m., stoppage of sale of PSU shares, privatization of PSU through PPP and outsourcing, stopping of contractisation and casualization of jobs, waiver of farm loans, remunerative prices to farm products, scrapping of National Pension Scheme, expanding the defined benefit scheme of pension to all the employees, stopping of amendments to labour laws and strict implementation of existing labour laws, universal social security coverage and pension to all and others.
They said wage negotiations in PSUs are not taking place and the Government is not giving clearance for commencement of wage negotiations. Unemployment situation in the country today is grave and severe. The fixed term employment policy would be death knell for job security. The after effects of demonetization and faulty GST have adversely impacted the lives of millions of working people. The Government has been aggressively pushing the labour law reforms and decided to amalgamate 44 Central Labour Laws into 4 Labour Codes which will be advantageous to the Corporates. In the name of universalisation of 'Social Security Code', Employees Provident Fund Organization, Employees State Insurance Corporation and many other welfare statutes are being dismantled.
They also said Privatization of all strategic PSUs that include defense production, Public Sector Banks and Insurance, Railways, public road transport corporations, oil, power, steel, coal etc is being done through disinvestment, strategic sale and outsourcing. FDI up to 100 percentages is allowed in many vital and strategic sectors. Farmers' unrest across the country is growing. The promised Minimum Support Price of 1.5 times of the cost of production to farmers is not being implemented.
The Public Sector Insurance Industry is under severe attack from the corporate lobbies and the Government. Efforts are being made by the Government to weaken nationalized character of the insurance industry. Disinvestment process has started in the General Insurance Industry with divestment of shares of GIC Re and New India Assurance Company. The Government is planning to merge the other three PSGI companies with the intention of listing the merged entity in the stock market. The demand for the listing of LIC and even privatization of LIC is being pushed by the corporate classes. The decision of LIC to buy the share of IDBI is being used to advocate the privatization of LIC.
Others who spoke on the occasion, Romesh Chand,Joint Secretary,Copm. Neelam Sharma,Dinesh Kumar Sharma,Com. Rajesh Kumar,Com. Nanak Chand,Com. Kishore Lal,Com. Shuban Raina The demonstration at Srinagar was led by Com. A.M.Tantray, President NZIEA Srinagar Division an others. |
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