AICCTU Andhra Pradesh Holds State Level Cadre Workshop

A state level cadre workshop of AICCTU Andhra Pradesh was conducted in Tirupathi, Chittoor District on 9th and 10th of April. The cadre workshop was organised with the purpose of discussing present challenges in organising working class movement and for conducting educational class on basic marxist concepts on labour exploitation. AICCTU leaders and activists from both Andhra Pradesh and Telengana participated in the cadre convention.  Leading comrades and workers from various sectors like construction, auto rickshaw, anganwadi, mid day meal, sanitation, cashew cultivation, street vending and hamali work participated in the convention.

Com V Shankar, All India President of AICCTU attended the workshop. Com. Murthy, State secretary of AP CPIML and Com. Bangar Rao Central Committee Member of CPIML also attended the convention as teachers.

Day1: 9th April

Inaugural session:

The workshop started with paying tributes to the martyrs of revolutionary movement followed by revolutionary songs sung by Com Sahadev, Com Rajesh and others. The inaugural session was addressed by Com. Shankar. He spoke elaborately about the four labour codes introduced by the Modi government with the intention of killing all existing rights of the working class. He  also spoke about the dangers of the recent spates of monetisation policies implemented by the central government and how these policies are meant for selling out the country’s valuable resources to private hands at the cost of rights and opportunities of dignified employment for the Indian working class. Comrade Shankar mentioned that those who are ruling India today are dispossessing people from their rights on the one hand and on the other is creating hatred and division within people by flaring up communalism.

Group Discussion on Practical Issues in Organizing Working Class Movement:

A session on practical issues faced by the union in organizing workers was held in the format of group discussions. All the comrades who attended were divided into smaller groups and were given different subjects like challenges faced by trade union movement, sector level issues, organization building, tasks of leading comrades etc to discuss. After extensive discussions for one hour, each group presented the key points discussed within the group. The exercise helped each group to take some inputs from every other group through lively and interactive discussion. Each session was followed by Question and Answer sub-session. The entire procedure was conducted by Comrade V Shankar and other AICCTU leaders.

Session on Basics of Political Economy:

Comrade Uday Kiran presented a session on the basic concepts of political economy like value, price, profit, surplus value and wages. The participants took part enthusiastically and made it an interactive session with questions. Com. Murthy presented the concluding session of the first day. He spoke elaborately on various aspects of communist movement. The session dealt with the importance of working class movement and class consciousness in the times of highly divisive political environment under the current BJP/RSS/Modi rule. The interest shown by the participant comrades has stressed the need of having such political classes regularly.

The Session on Rural Labour:

Com. Bangar Rao presented some core issues faced by rural labour in Andhra Pradesh. He discussed about the transformation of small peasantry into labour both in agriculture and other non-farm activities. He also discussed about organising principles of rural union and the need to expand our work.

Speeches by Leading Comrades:

Comrades T Aruna, Anbu, D Rajesh and others spoke on the practical issues that workers are facing in various sectors and the importance of unionising the workers.

Concluding Session:

The state work was summarised and the reports of different models of our practice in different parts of the country were also shared.

In the following session, it was decided to hold the first state conference of AICCTU soon with a membership target of 50,000 and with expansion of our work to eleven districts out of a total of thirteen. An orientation for the work in the state was also decided. Organising workers of sanitation, schemes, construction and railways were taken up as sections for concentration. The workshop also made three categories of districts for concentration. The need for organizing rural labour under the banner of AICCTU was also emphasized.

The workshop concluded with a firm resolution to make the state conference a grand success and to strengthen the state AICCTU to hold high the banner of people’s resistance and workers unity against the anti-people, anti-worker regimes of Modi and Jagan.ν