KOLKATA: A one-day strike called yesterday by Communists to protest against inflation shut down three Indian states ruled by the Left parties, and partially hit train and air services, but the rest of the country was largely unaffected, officials said.
A separate strike was also called by three bank unions representing about 600,000 workers but work at the nation’s top banks was largely unaffected.
Thousands of Indian airport, rail and bank workers went on strike yesterday to protest against soaring inflation and the government’s “anti-worker” policies, officials and reports said. The nationwide action called by Communist-backed trade unions was also to protest against an average 21 percent wage hike for government officials that the strikers say ignores junior staff, the Press Trust of India reported.
It comes a month after Communist parties, bitter critics of what they call the Congress-led government’s “anti-labor” policies, withdrew their support after propping up the administration in parliament for four years.
All-India Trade Union Congress leader Gurudas Das Gupta said millions of workers, including some in India’s fast-growing telecoms industry, were off work and would “make the strike a big success.” “The agitation will be a warning to the government ... not to pamper the corporates and speculators, both domestic and foreign, at the cost of the rights and livelihoods of the toiling people,” a union statement said.
Flights from India’s capital New Delhi to the eastern city of Kolkata, the capital of Marxist-ruled West Bengal state, were the one-day strike’s “first casualty,” a Delhi airport official said. Kolkata airport official V.K. Monga said all flights from the city airport had been canceled until Thursday morning. “Employee attendance is very poor,” he added. Rail and road traffic in West Bengal was in disarray, while attendance at government and private offices was thin, other officials reported.
More than 10,000 security personnel have been deployed “as a precautionary step,” senior West Bengal police officer Raj Kanojia said.
Waving red flags embossed with the Communist hammer and sickle symbol, hundreds of strikers marched through the streets of Kolkata shouting slogans against the central government and enforcing the strike.
“We will work on Saturday to make up for the day’s loss,” said an official of Tata Consultancy Services on condition of anonymity.
The strike hit life in Tripura. Communist party workers forced shopkeepers to pull down their shutters. In Kerala, people complained the strike had stranded thousands of passengers.
The strike is also being supported by leftist unions in the state-run telephone company and by airport workers.
