Volume 4, No. 9, September 2003

The recent strike by over 11 lakh government employees and teaching and non-teaching staff of govt.-aided and govt. run schools and colleges was put down with an iron hand by the Jayalalitha’s government.

The indefinite strike announced from June 2nd was banned by the most draconian law — the Tamil Nadu Essential Services Maintenance Act (TESMA) which was followed by an ordinance, that amended certain sections to this Act to make it more monstrous. Armed with such enormous powers, the TN govt. made unprecedented summary dismissals of 2 lakh employees and teachers and arrested 2,200 of them. Midnight arrests and raids continued for several days aimed at terrorising the employees.

Jayalalitha’s highhandedness is not new to the TN people. She has a long history. She has even used POTA unsparingly to suppress all dissent and opposition. Now to suppress all struggles, she is using the sibling of POTA, that is TESMA.

The AIADMK govt. has consistently trampled on the hard won rights and benefits of govt. employees on the pretext that the State’s finances were in a bad position. The TN govt. announced many measures to cut costs, which included retrenchment and freeze on new appointments. It dismissed 10,000 employees in the Highway Department after Jayalalitha assumed office.

In November 2001, the govt. denied ex-gratia payment of 11.66% of annual earnings to one-lakh employees of the transport corporation, 35,000 employees of the civil supplies corporation, and over 85,000 employees of the electricity board. It issued an order, denying bonus to employees of 60 PSU’s. A majority of the nine lakh govt. employees were denied festival advance. The govt.’s justification was that these are all done because of conditions set by the World Bank and other International lending agencies.

Jayalalitha, determined to follow the policies of privatisation and liberalisation, recently suppressed the militant and popular struggle of the medical students’ against privatization of medical education, with a heavy hand, using the TESMA.

It was a bolt from the blue for employees, when the Finance Minister, in his budget speech, announced that salary arrears kept impounded since five years with interest on it, which became due on April 1, 2003, would be paid only in installments. Retired employees who had been expecting this payment were the worst hit. Thus Jayalalitha wants to deny immediate access to the Rs. 4,000 crores accrued to the employees over the years. Another shock treatment was in waiting. Several GOs (government orders) issued in March this year, slashed pension-related benefits. One of the GOs raised the minimum period of service required for a govt employee to get full pension, from the present 30 to 33 years. The GOs also curtailed the right to get the whole gratuity; instead they would get 50% in cash and the rest would be in the form of savings certificates. Further, the mode of calculation relating to various terminal benefits were changed to the financial detriment of employees. All this and other curtailments relating to terminal benefits would result in a monetary loss in the range of Rs. 90,000 to 4 lakh per employee.

The employees and teachers belonging to 350 unions went on strike and held big demonstrations protesting these anti-employee measures. The April 10th strike was a big success. In May demonstrations were held in all district centres. An indefinite strike was announced from June 2nd, if their demands were not met.

As the AIADMK government was adamant in rejecting the demands, the JACTTEO-CEO and COTA-CEO, two umbrella organisations with 90 unions under them, went on indefinite strike. From the very beginning, Jayalalitha was threatening to use TESMA. Even before the strike began, on the night of June 30th, 22 union leaders were arrested under TESMA.

This black piece of legislation passed in May 2002 hits at the "right to strike", a basic fundamental right of the working class. The Act encompasses all services where the State legislature has power to make laws. Thus the Government can declare any service as essential, and prohibit strikes.

Any strike in any service declared "essential" under TESMA is then illegal. If any one joins the strike or incites others to go on strike, they have to face 3 years imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5000. "Refusal to work overtime", or any conduct which results in "substantial retardation of work in any essential service" can also be branded as a "strike", and if the employees do any form of protest it can be punished under this Act. Thus this notorious law virtually prohibits all forms of struggle.

In addition to this, just two days after the strike began, Jayalalitha came with an ordinance amending TESMA empowering the authorities with enormous powers to impose major penalties including the summary dismissal or break in employment without conducting any inquiry. The Ordinance says that mere absenting from duty will be deemed as participation in the strike and explicitly admitted to have committed a "misconduct". Even without serving any individual notice, the govt. could summarily dismiss the employee. The dismissed employees will find their names posted on the notice boards.

Initially there was tremendous enthusiasm and a struggling spirit to fight against the dictatorial policies of Jayalalitha. The strike rallied more than a million employees and teachers despite fascistic threats of Jayalalitha to use the TESMA. When the govt. arrested 22 leaders on the eve of the strike, in Chennai, 5000 Secretariat employees closed the offices and held a flash demonstration and announced the immediate strike on June 1st itself. That was the spirit of militancy of the employees. But the leadership showed neither militancy nor consistency it ought to have done in the extraordinary situation. Almost the entire leadership was arrested and employees became leaderless. Instead of giving clear instructions to go for more militant forms, the leadership relied on meek forms like taking the issue to the courts. All the opposition parties who showed not more than lip-sympathy, did not take any effective steps to build up a solidarity movement. True to its revisionist character, the CPI and CPM, instead of going in solidarity industrial actions in opposing one of the blackest laws in the country and one of the most vicious attacks on employees ever, and supporting the struggle, it resorted to taking the issues to courts.

The strike had tremendous impact and the whole TN government was paralyzed. But the leadership succumbed to the strong-arm tactics of Jayalalitha and made a complete surrender. Emboldened by this meek surrender by the leadership of the unions and the innocuous tactics by the revisionists, the govt. reacted to the strike in a most humiliating manner for the million employees.

The Govt. began to employ new recruits on a contract basis. It did not allow the employees to return to work after the leadership announced withdrawal of the strike. The strike began to fizzle out just after two days.

As the leadership and the revisionist trade unions put most of their "struggle efforts" in filing cases against the TESMA, against arrests of the leaders and summary dismissal of 2 lakh employees, the scene of "agitation" just after two days shifted to the Madras High Court and later to the Supreme Court.

Instead of intensifying the agitation, one of the Unions, went to challenge the TESMA in the High Court. The Court did not go into the issues at all, but played an obnoxious role of mediator in facilitating the surrender of employees to the government. While it took an undertaking from the representatives of some unions, it reposed full confidence in the govt. that it would release the arrested leaders and reinstate the employees.

The Court’s order was that the suspensions and dismissals should be kept in abeyance. But the government responded to the High Court order by sacking over one-lakh employees using the newly acquired powers under the ordinance. While the High Court asked the govt. to ask the employees to rejoin after giving "a written statement accepting their misconduct", Jayalalitha was not satisfied with this, and did not allow any one to join. The High Court’s stipulated conditions were itself quite humiliating and mischievous and was used for the further victimization of the employees.

The Employees’ Unions and revisionist Trade Unionists again went to the High Court Bench to challenge the validity of TESMA and "praying" for the reinstatement of around two lakh of the dismissed employees.

The High Court Bench simply ordered the release of the arrested leaders, not interfering with the dismissal of two lakh employees. The National secretary of the BJP, L. Ganesan, said: "It was victory of the government" and he advised the employees to realise the seriousness of the situation. He appealed to the Chief Minister: "let the CM show magnanimity in taking them back on the condition that they would not participate in such agitation in the future". Fascists of the same feathers sing in a similar tune!

The Madras High Court declined to come to the rescue of about two lakh employees and teachers who were dismissed enmasse summarily by one of the most fascistic pieces of legislation. Not only that, it supported the TESMA along with the amendments added by the midnight ordinance. The High Court supported the government to the hilt by saying that dismissal of lakhs of employees in a summary fashion was not at all a violation of "fundamental rights". Fully knowing that the agitation came to an end, it ordered the release of the arrested persons.

At this stage, the entire leadership became further hopeless, as they were hoping against hope that the High court would save them by reinstating the sacked employees. They were desperate for the "Amma Darshan" and some openly declared that they would not go to any court because their best court now was only that of "Amma’s"!!

But the revisionist leaders being ‘relentless fighters’, they would not leave the ‘struggle’ in between! They, along with the ‘Progressive’ Labour Front of the DMK, appealed to the Supreme Court.

The SC, while reinstating all the employees, except those on whom charges were framed and those whose names were in FIRs, observed that the "employees have no fundamental right to go on strike and hold the state to ransom". When the employees returned to work on July 25th in the wake of the SC statement, more than 25,000 were served FIRs, which were hitherto not known to them. Even now, around 32,000 employees and teachers are still out of job. Officially the TN government stated on Aug.5 to the SC that it has dismissed 6,072 employees, who included the 2,211 earlier arrested and another 1,112 others "involved in instigating employees to participate in the strike". The SC had magnanimously recommended the dismissal of up to 5,000!!!

It is crystal clear that a vast section of people is being affected by the policies of the WB-IMF-WTO. Till the 1990’s, though the ruling classes were implementing conditionalities of the IMF or WB, they were doing it clandestinely. Now it is an open affair. Our whole economy is inextricably tied to the imperialist policies of imperialism.

The days of ordinary forms of struggle are over. New, and more militant forms will have to be considered. Whenever they fight, they need to bring the support and solidarity of people into the action. The slogan by the Paris workers some years ago that "If we do not come on to the streets, we will be thrown into the streets" is all the more true today.

The TN govt. employees and teachers fought not for new benefits, but to protect the terminal benefits which were hitherto untouched. As the economic crisis is intensifying, the onslaught will intensify and encompass new areas that were not touched so far. The wretched role that the courts are playing can be seen elesewhere, whether it is in the Best Bakery case, or in the release of perpetrators of the genocide on Sikhs in the 1984 riots cases, or in giving death punishment without any iota of evidence in the Parliament attack case and on MCCI activists in Bihar, or in the TN employees struggle, is clear. High Courts and the Supreme Courts have supported the most dictatorial and draconian laws like NSA, MISA, TADA and POTA. Having illusions in the Courts with which to fight against black laws like TESMA, is as if to find water in mirages.

In the on-going struggles, employees would have taken their struggle before the vast section of the masses, resort to more militant means and gain solidarity from the rest of the trade union movement in the country.

Eventually, people will learn lessons in the course of such struggles and will teach lessons to dictators like Jayalalita.

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