India Unions Strike Over Economic Reforms

Trade unions in India have begun a two-day strike in protest against the government’s economic reforms, which they describe as anti-labour.

Nearly a dozen unions plan to block rail and road traffic. Operations of state-run banks will be affected.

The reforms include plans to open the country’s retail sector to global supermarket chains.

PM Manmohan Singh has appealed to the unions to call off the strike, saying it will cause a “loss to our economy”.

Reports said that a trade union leader had been killed by some unknown men at a bus station in the northern Punjab state early on Wednesday.

The leader was trying to stop the men from operating the buses when he was stabbed to death, senior Communist leader Gurudas Dasgupta told the Press Trust of India news agency.

The protest is expected to have the most impact in the eastern West Bengal and southern Kerala states, where the unions are powerful and enjoy the most clout.

The striking unions, who owe their allegiance to the Communists, the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress party, are also protesting against government moves to open retail, insurance and aviation sectors to foreign investment and increase prices of subsidised fuel and cooking gas.

“The workers are being totally ignored and this is reflected in the government’s anti-labour policies,” Tapan Sen, general secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) told the AFP news agency.

A one-day strike against reforms last September shut down some cities and cost Asia’s third-largest economy millions of dollars in lost business.

The government’s “big bang” reforms are aimed at reviving a flagging economy, as well as avoiding the threat of a downgrade in India’s credit rating.

PM Manmohan Singh said the reforms would “help strengthen our growth process and generate employment in these difficult times”.

BBC