INTUC National vice president, State unit president and former Rajya Sabha MP Dr RC Khuntia urged upon the Narendra Modi Government to amend the Constitution to make health, safety and social security as fundamental rights.
Dr Khuntia chaired a national level trade unions council meeting from July 28 to 30 at New Delhi. This was the 29th edition of the Indian Affiliates Council (IAC) comprising unions from across major States in the building, building materials, forestry and allied sectors.
A national women’s committee meeting preceded the IAC wherein capacity development and skills training for women workers, implementation of women specific laws and policies, ratification of ILO C190 and bringing in more women in the unions’ fold across India were laid emphasis.
The IAC had opening remarks from the BWI general secretary AmbetYuson who joined online from Geneva. Syed Sultan U Ahmmed, specialist on workers’ activities, International Labour Organisation (South Asia); Dr Onkar Sharma, deputy Chief Labour Commissioner and Punit Agarwal, senior counsellor, CII Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) Apolinar Tolentino, regional representative, BWI Asia-Pacific and from South Asia Office, Dr Rajeev Sharma and key officials – Prerna Prasad and Anitha Nair participated.
More than 80 unions’ representatives attended during the three-day deliberations that covered a wide range of issues concerning workers and trade union rights. The trade unions’ leaders highlighted anti-labour provisions in the Labour Codes and voiced their concern on the anti-labour provisions that are due for implementation later this year and called for its repeal. The issue of GST in the Beedi/Kendu leaves and also brick kiln was strongly raised.
The IAC discussed on the upcoming Global Congress of the BWI and also WIT (Women in Trades) conference scheduled at Madrid, Spain in
October. The council also passed a resolution in support of the Presidium including BWI, general secretary Yuson. Further, Dr Khuntia also informed the council of the work undertaken by him under the FSC Regional Consultations at Bangkok, Thailand in July and also at the International Migration Review Forum, United Nations HQ, New York in May.