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GLIMPSES
OF RAILWAY TRADE UNION MOVEMENT IN INDIA
During the last part of the 19th Century, railwaymen were
inspired by the ongoing freedom struggle. There were several strikes in the
railway workshops during that period and in the early part of the 20th
Century. After the formation of All India Trade Union Congress, the trade union
leaders who were spearheading the freedom struggle and were active in the
railway trade union movement, in 1924, formed the All India Railwaymen's
Federation(AIRF), consisting of the railwaymen’s unions working on the
different railways. Many of them were jailed and dismissed from service.
In the early stages, the meetings of AIRF were
organised on the sideline of the meetings of the All India Trade Union Congress.
The Railways being a strategic industry, it was very important for the freedom
struggle to involve the railwaymen in the agitation against British imperialism.
The AIRF took steps to unify the railwaymen’s union by merger of small unions
into one union on each railway.
The British Government also started negotiations with the Federation from
1928 and half yearly meetings were held between the AIRF and the Railway Board,
headed by the Chief Commissioner of the Railways. During these negotiations
several achievements to improve the service conditions of the railwaymen were
reached. The AIRF was bitterly opposed to racial discrimination. It opposed
higher scales of pay being given to the Europeans and the Anglo Indians for
doing the same work as the Indians. The AIRF also put pressure for the training
of the Indian Railway workers. Untill 1947, the AIRF was able to unify the
entire railway trade union movement into one union on each railway and one
Federation for the whole of the Indian Railways. It was after 1947 that the
ruling party floated its own Central Trade Union and also a Federation in the
Railways.
The first General Strike in the Railways in the
post-independent era took place in July, 1960 against the unfavourable
recommendations of the II CPC. Though the strike lasted for five days, yet it
shook the Government of India who had issued an ordinance and declared the
strike illegal. The ordinance provided six months imprisonment and a fine of
Rs.500/- for those who joined the strike and one year’s imprisonment and a
fine of Rs.1,000/- for those who instigated the railway workers for strike. In
this strike 5 persons were killed, 1,60,000 employees were placed under arrest,
50,000 employees were suspended and thousands of employees were
removed/dismissed from service. Notwithstanding these hard measures to break the
strike, the strike that took place proved to be a landmark in the history of
free India. This forced the Government of India to negotiate with the Trade
Unions of the Central Government employees and to provide an effective forum for
the settlement of their legitimate demands. This machinery was established in
the year 1967 after protracted negotiations with the unions of the Central
Government employees, including the railwaymen. The machinery is called Joint
Consultative Machinery(JCM) for the Central Government employees.
Another strike of the Central Government employees and the railwaymen
took place on 19th September, 1968 against the Government’s refusal
to refer the demands of the Central Government employees for arbitration as
provided for in the JCM Scheme. In this strike 48,000 Central Government
employees were served with notices of termination of service, 4,000 railway
employees were summarily discharged, 7,000 placed under suspension and 8,000
faced trial in different courts of law. 9 persons died in police firing. Most of
them were railwaymen. Against this massive victimisation, the leaders of the
Central Government employees, including the present General Secretary of the
AIRF, went on an indefinite fast in front of the Parliament in New Delhi. The
Government of India was forced to withdraw the discharge notices and
consequently all the discharged employees were reinstated in service.
Again in May, 1974, the railwaymen were forced to go on strike which
lasted for three weeks. During this strike 50,000 railway workers were arrested,
over 10,300 railwaymen were dismissed from service, service of over 5,600
temporary employees were terminated and 4 employees lost their lives. This was a
historic strike which attracted worldwide attention. This strike was also a
contributory factor in the landslide defeat of the Congress Party, which was
responsible for forcing the workers to go on strike. It is, however, a matter of
satisfaction that all victimised railway workers were reinstated in service
either by the court’s orders or by the announcement made by the Railway
Minister of the Janata Government in the year 1977.
In the year 1978, the AIRF took a strike ballot for an indefinite General
Strike in the railways on the government’s refusal to concede the railwaymens’
demand for payment of bonus. The strike was averted because of the settlement of
the demand and Government agreeing to pay Productivity Linked Bonus(PLB) to
railwaymen. The PLB which started with 15 days ad-hoc payment has increased to
59 days wages for the year 2002-03.
In the year 1997, on receipt of the report of the V CPC, the AIRF along
with other unions of the Central Government employees organised a strike. The
response was massive. The strike was averted following negotiations between the
JCM leaders and the Group of Ministers, as the result of which an agreement was
signed on 11.9.1997 which granted 20% additional wage hike over that recommended
by the V CPC along with an agreement for resolving the anomalies arising out of
it.
There has been the policy of having continuous dialogue between the
organised labour and the Railway Administration at various levels which greatly
helped in maintaining prolonged industrial peace on the Railways. While through
these negotiations, legitimate demands of the railwaymen could be settled, the
Railway Administration also got an opportunity to use a good industrial climate
for the efficient functioning of the Railway System in the service of rail
users.
The AIRF is a free, democratic and independent organisation. Out of 1.5
million railway workers, 1.1 million are members of the AIRF. It has affiliated
unions on all the 16 Zonal Railways and Production Units and the MTP Railway.
As opposed to the popular belief that trade union’s sole aim is to
organise strikes, demonstrations, dharnas, AIRF and its affiliates have been
doing social service through several non-bargaining activities like health check
and blood and eye donation camps, sports activities and prize distribution for
the children of railway employees, organising drug and alcohol de-addiction,
AIDS awareness and family planning camps and providing relief to the victims of
natural calamities etc., taking regular coaching classes for children of railway
employees and also running computer classes and educational institutions
including an Engineering College.
The AIRF is concerned about safety on Indian Railways and has been
organising seminars and meetings, educating the cadre on safety in railway
working. In November last AIRF held the Maha Safety Samvad at Allahabad which
was attended by more than 12,000 railway workers, the leadership of AIRF and its
affiliated unions, the Railway Minister, Minister of State for Railways,
Chairman, Railway Board and other members of the Railway Board. This received
highest appreciation everywhere.
Notwithstanding all the good work being done by it, the AIRF and its
affiliated unions are involved in a bitter struggle and are facing
Governments’ offensive on various issues.
Railways’ regular activities are being outsourced to corporations or
contractors and workers’ unity is being disrupted by granting recognition to
non-representative unions. Benchmarking is being pursued without creating the
requisite working conditions and providing the required tools, clamps and spare
parts on a uniform basis all over the Indian Railways, downsizing of the working
strength is being carried out indiscriminately, a contributory pension scheme is
being introduced, doing away with the beneficial old scheme and labour laws are
being amended to the detriment of workers to placate foreign investors at the
behest of IMF and WTO.
Since the Indian Railways are the Nation’s greatest asset and second line of the defence of the country, the AIRF and its affiliated unions are determined to continue its constructive activities and at the same time take all possible steps against Railways’ being privatised as also their unity being tempered with.
OUR
MOTTO
SAFETY
FIRST – NOT PROFIT
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INDIAN
RAILWAYS AT CROSS ROADS
On the 16th April, 1853, the first train on iron rails rolled
off from Goregaon, Bombay (now Mumbai) and reached Thane, a distance of 21 miles
in about 75 minutes, carrying 400 passengers in 14 carriages.
The construction and operation of the railways in India was undertaken by
companies formed in England who were guided by the consideration of their own
profit and the service of the Britishers. They were operating on different
gauges and failed to prove to be the National carrier. Therefore, the Government
came forward and took them over. Subsequently the railways owned by the rulers
of Indian States were also taken over by the Government and regrouped into six
zones and subsequently into 9 zones. The arrangement remained constant for over
30 years when as a part of a major organisational shake up these 9 zones were
split to form 16 zones.
The railways converted most of the meter gauge into a uniform broad
gauge. Steam traction was changed over to diesel traction and lastly into
electric traction on most of the important routes. The Indian Railways have
retained one steam loco shed to run a heritage steam engine train mostly for the
foreign tourists.
The Railways played a significant role in the freedom struggle and during
the wars and famines, carrying troops and arms and ammunition and food grains to
the front and to deficit areas.
Indian Railways have completed 150 years of their existence. Spread over
63,000 route kms, the Indian Railways are the Second Largest Net Work
in the world, carrying over 13 million passengers and 1.4 million tonnes of
freight every day in 14,000 trains and giving employment to 1.5 million workers
directly and millions and millions workers indirectly.
Indian Railways are the only railways that earn profit. While the world
over, financial support is extended to reimburse the losses relating to
operation of uneconomic lines and for carrying traffic at concessional rates,
the Indian Railways have been meeting these losses due to social obligations by
cross subsidy, i.e. within their own earnings. In addition, the railways pay
dividends for the capital invested by the Government year after year.
Production Units
The
Indian Railways have their own Production Units which produce electric
locomotives, diesel locomotives, coaches and spare parts whose brief description
is as under:-
Chittaranjan Locomotive Works
CLW has so far produced 2351 steam locomotives of five types, 852 diesel
locomotives of seven types and 3050 electric locomotives of 12 types. By
producing 3-phase electric locomotives, it established India 5th in
the world and 2nd in Asia, capable of producing the state-of-the-art
3-phase electric locos. It is thus a quantum technological jump.
Diesel Locomotive Works
It dedicated 4300 sophisticated and indigenous diesel locomotives to the
Nation. It exported Indian excellence to other Asian tracks. It is one of the
few fully integrated locomotive plants in the world.
Integral Coach Factory
90% of the EMUs and 100% of the DMUs and MEMUs, running across the
country, had been designed and manufactured by the IFC. It has also presence in
the global market, having exported coaches to over 10 countries.
Rail Coach Factory
RCF is only 15 years old. It has made significant contribution by having
manufactured 12,800 coaches, which constitute 35% of the total production of
coaches.
Diesel Component Works
It was established in the year 1981 to extend maintenance support for
WDM2 locomotive fleet of Indian Railways. This was later extended for building
diesel and electric locomotive power pecks. By March 2002, DCW built 790 WDM2
locos, including 102 power upgraded WDM2C locos of 3160 h.p.
Rail Wheel Factory
Rail Wheel Factory manufactured over 12.38 lakh wheels, 6.85 lakh axles
and 4.94 lakh wheel sets for Railways and non-railway customers. This factory
has been bestowed with a number of major awards in recognition of its
contribution towards quality and environment management.
Public Sector Undertakings of Indian Railways
During the year 2001-02, IRCON International Ltd. registered a turnover
of Rs.907 crores and earned a net profit of Rs.104 crores. The Company paid a
dividend of Rs.17.3 crores and bagged Export Awards from Overseas Construction
Council of India.
The Container Corporation of India
Ltd.(CONCOR) registered a turnover of Rs.1286 crores, earned a net profit of
Rs.249.85 crores. It paid a dividend of Rs.41 crores.
Indian Railway Finance Corporation
During
the year, IRFC achieved a net profit of Rs.292 crores and paid a dividend of
Rs.100 crores for the year 2001-02.
Despite
the PUs and PSUs owned by the Ministry of Railways earning profit, proposals are
on way to sell them out to the Private Sector.
Safety
The Indian Railways have been making dedicated efforts to provide safe,
secure and punctual transport service to rail users. A Comprehensive Safety Plan
for 10 years has also been drawn up, which was also placed for consideration of
the Parliament.
Presently, Indian Railways are in the throes of a change as the forces of
globalisation have unleashed liberalisation and privatisation. Two committees
appointed by the Government, viz. the Prakash Tandan Committee and the Rakesh
Mohan Committee had strongly recommended privatisation and rightsizing of the
workforce. There has been a lot of discussion on these reports and it has been
brought home to the Government that privatisation of the Indian Railways will be
suicidal, looking to the failure of similar efforts on other railways of the
world, particularly the British Railways. The pro-privatisation lobby has been
working overtime clamouring to privatise, if not wholly, at least partially or
fractional works, in the Indian Railways. There has been constant pressure from
external agencies to detach the production units from the integrated railway
system and make them independent corporations, which in course of time can be
converted into joint stock companies, thereby enabling the process of
privatisation to step in.
The All India Railwaymen's Federation(AIRF) has been strongly resisting
the move. Even then a considerable part of freight booking has been transferred
to the Container Corporation. Catering work, which was earlier managed
departmentally, has been handed over to a separate corporation and the process
of downsizing the staff strength has begun. Thus although the basic structure
has so far not been privatization to step in.
The AIRF has a very big task ahead. It is aware of its responsibilities,
not only towards its members, but to the people of India. And it will not fail
in discharging its duties. The Platinum Jubilee Convention of AIRF, in the year
1999, gave a call to save the Railways and save the country and since then
AIRF’s affiliated unions are actively opposing the outsourcing of Railways’
perennial departmental activities.