Workers demand equal pay for equal work in Mahbubnagar

Mahbubnagar: Marking the celebrations of International Labour day, also called the May Day, the leaders of All India Trade Union Congress, Communist Party of India and leaders from All India Students Federation took part in flag hosting, and later took out rallies demanding equal pay for equal work across 30 centres in Mahbubnagar district on Wednesday.

While participating in a rally by the auto unions, labourers and employees of RTC, Paramesh Goud, CPI General Secretary of Mahbubnagar said that both the State and the Central governments were adopting suppressive labour polices and taking decisions favouring corporate companies.

"In the last five years, we have witnessed a draconian and dictatorial government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the centre and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao in Telangana. Both these leaders have been suppressing the rights of employees and labourers to form unions. KCR who promised to abolish the outsourcing system before coming to power is still continuing the same system and exploiting the employees. The workers and employees working in the unorganised sectors are the worst impacted as they are being paid very less and asked to work for 8-10 hours a day," said the CPI leader.

Currently, in Mahbubnagar district alone, there are 4 lakh labours and employees working in unorganised sectors. However, they are being exploited and paid low salaries as less as Rs 3,000 per month, the CPI leader alleged, adding that the State and the Central governments were not implementing the Supreme Court's order of equal pay for equal work. "Every employee who is working under outsourcing must be paid a minimum salary of Rs 18,000 per month," he said.

The AICTU and CITU leaders alleged that the Central government has amended the labour laws and had allowed the formation of unions only if there were more than 100 employees in an organisation. This is clearly against the rights of labourers and this step is looked as a favourable decision for the corporates. "Earlier in any organisation if there were 10 employees, they had the right to form a union and fight for their rights. But with the amendment of labour laws, the Central government has suppressed the rights of workers," said a CITU leader.

The union leaders demanded safety, social justice, health, education and other welfare be provided for the labourers and employees working in the unorganised sectors.

Ramakrishna, CPI secretary from Palakonda Hanmanthu, Chinna Venkataiah, Narasimha, Satyam, Rambabu, Kammari Ashok Kumar, Narender, Anil, Yellamma, Venkatesh and others participated in the May day celebrations.