India: two-day strike for labour rights and better wages

Around a dozen or so Indian trade unions have called for a two-day strike spanning 28 and 29 March to protest the government’s economic policies and to advocate for workers’ rights. “Hundreds of millions of workers participated in the strike and millions joined the demonstrations organised (on 28 March) across the country,” said the Centre for Indian Trade Union (CITU), one of the unions that had called for the mass mobilization. The unions are demanding universal social security coverage for workers in the unregulated informal sector, which accounts for the vast majority of jobs in India, as well as for an increase in the minimum wage, and a halt to the privatization of India’s publicly held banks. The banking sector employees’ association supported this movement and responded to the call for a strike. “Due to the strike, banking services have been affected,” the organization’s statement said. Public transport was also disrupted across the country and some roads were blocked by the demonstrators. According to the CITU, millions of informal sector workers also took part in the demonstrations, and farmers and agricultural workers organized a number of actions rurally. The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh union that is affiliated with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), did not participate in the two-day strike, deeming the mobilisation to have been driven by political imperative.