Fourth Odisha State Conference of AICCTU

Gearing Up Working Class against Corporate Loot and Rampant Contractualisation

The fourth Odisha State Conference of AICCTU was held on 21st February successfully at Balugan in Khurdha district. Around 200 delegates from 10 districts of the state took part in the conference. Representatives of the working class from sanitation, railway, construction, health and scheme work participated in the conference. Representatives from fraternal organisations like AITUC, CITU, HMS and AIUTUC also participated in the conference.

The ruling party in Odisha, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has time and again shown its affinity to anti-worker policies of the Modi Government. It has backed the Modi government in most of the anti-people legislations passed by the parliament. At the same time, it has time and again gone back on its own promise made to the workers of Odisha like that of regularisation and abolishing the contract system. The BJP also has a disastrous track record of giving away Odisha’s ecologically sensitive forest lands to private companies for mining, not only at the cost of lives and livelihood of the tribal population living in these lands, but also of the rights of the workers in these projects. The conference was an opportunity for the working class in Odisha to reassert their commitment against corporate loot and violation of working class rights.

Comrade Rajiv Dimri, National General Secretary of AICCTU said while addressing the conference that the conference is being done at a very difficult time for the working class when all their hard earned rights are being taken away and flood gate for privatisation has been opened up by the present regime. He added that the trade union movement must guarantee that the anti-worker labour codes are not implemented in the country and the workers must be mobilised to ensure a resounding mandate against the government that passed the codes from the parliament in the first place. Comrade Dimri also emphasised the role of working class unity to push back the communal polarisation engineered by the present regime.

The conference elected a 41 member state committee and 19 member office bearer team. Comrade Radhakant Sethi was elected as the state president and comrade Mahendra Parida was elected as the State Secretary of AICCTU.

Comrade Radhakant Sethi called upon AICCTU Odisha to initiate unionising processes in different sectors and reach workers with a campaign exposing the real character of the Modi regime. Comrade Mahendra Parida said that after the conference, AICCTU Odisha will engage in expansion of membership and build up strong unions among Scheme, Sanitation, Mining and Public Sector workers.

Comrade Yudhistir Mahapatra, Secretary of CPIML Odisha greeted the conference. Other leaders like AILKM Odisha State Secretary Comrade Ashoke Pradhanand AIARLA general secretary Comrade Tripathi Gomango also expressed their solidarity with AICCTU’s struggles.