Trade unions protesting on non-existent issues: Jaitley on Bharat Bandh

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Wednesday accused the Left-affiliated trade unions of manufacturing a protest on non-existent issues, saying the NDA government has taken a host of decisions for the welfare of workers.

His statement comes on the second day of the 'Bharat Bandh' organised by ten central trade unions to protest against the alleged anti-labour policies of the Centre.

"If the Left trade unions insist on politicising the trade union movement to manufacture a protest on non-existent issues, it is for the workmen in the country to seriously analyse what the present government has done for them and compare it with the relatively blank record of several earlier governments," Jaitley said in a Facebook post titled 'The Present Government and the Workers'.

 

Listing out the steps taken by the NDA regime for the welfare of workers, Jaitley said no government in the past has taken, within a short period, so many continuous pro-worker decisions in order to ensure that the advantage of a better quality of life is ensured to them as a result of the economic development of the country.

"Even though procedural simplifications have been done in several legislations in order to cut down the paper work, the government has desisted from taking any decision which hurts the interest of the employees," he said.

The NDA government since 2014 has set up a group of ministers to continuously maintained a dialogue with the trade unions and taken a host of steps like raising the bonus and gratuity ceiling, hiking minimum wages, increasing maternity benefits, and guaranteeing fixed pension of Rs 1,000 per month.

"Are there any real issues before them (trade unions) or is it a part of the strategy of the Left political organisations to organise a symbolic unrest to ensure that they are not wiped out from the political map of India," Jaitley said.

He further said the strength of the Left parties has been significantly eroded in West Bengal and Tripura. In the recent past, the political environment in Kerala is also building against them.