President's Message on the eve of Federation Day
Dear Comrades,
It is customary for the President to pen a few lines on the eve of the founding day of the ITEF. When we salute the flag on 10th February 2011, which would be unfurled in front of our offices throughout the length and breadth of the country, we remember the stupendous efforts, the immense sacrifices and the untold agonies, our comrades had to make and udergo to buildup a militant, united and strong trade union movement of Tax Employees. I consider it as a proud privilege conferred upon me to convey the fraternal greetings to all members on this great occasion - on the eve of the 59th anniversary of ITEF
The catastrophic global financial crisis that engulfed the Capitalist world due to its pursuit of profit by any means created shock ways in all Governments which had adopted the neo liberal economy agenda for governance. Most of these Governments deemed it their duty to bail them out. No different was the response of Dr. Manmohan Singh Government. The Crisis did not bring about any rethinking on the advisability of pursuing the anti- people policies but unfortunately led much more aggressive pursuance of the same agenda. India and other developing countries were targeted to be the partners of the capitalist world in this endeavour of resurrection.
This is what we witnessed this year- our country becoming more and more subservient to the US strategies, be it in the political or economic front. We saw further de-regulation of the financial sector; privatization of pension schemes; setting up of micro financial institutions to deny banking credit facilities to the priority sector so that institutional finance will become the sole prerogatives of big corporate houses; dismantling of the administrative price mechanism of the petroleum products ; opening the retail market for multinational corporations; permission to indulge in speculative forward trading in more and more essential food articles etc. which could not be done by the UPA-I Government as it could not bring about the necessary legislative measures in the Parliament for want of support of the Left. These are the unambiguous sign of an extreme rightward shift in the policies of the present day Government which still makes socialist pretensions and utterances.
There had been no let up in the escalation of the prices of food articles. Inflation is no more considered as a phenomenon; but certainly believed to be consciously engineered by those in government with the real intent to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich in the society; to amass profit for the corporate trading houses.. Despite th e tall claim of having the fastest growing economy we carry today the largest number of hungry people in the world. The country is beset with rising unemployment, fast declining quality of employment and contractual employment with no job security.
At no point of time in our post-independent history we have witnessed so brazen violation of labour related rules and regulation. The state machinery, be at the provincial or at the central level have become the security guards of the capitalist class. At the behest of the big corporate houses, the Government has now proposed to bring in an enactment in the next session of the Parliament to exempt all establishments employing upto 40 workers from the purview of the existing basic labour laws.
It is in the background of this scenario one has to look at the corruption galore that now become pervasive in all segments of governance. Be it the IPL scam, Adarsh housing Society, Commonwealth Games, Land Scam of Karnataka or the great 2G spectrum, all were with the involvement and patronization of the mighty in the Government of the country The rampant corruption, subservient economy corrupt politicians weak institutions, pursuit for profit are the hall marks of a degenerated civil society, which can sustain only a pervert democratic system, where rich becomes the opinion makers and power-brokers and common people and working class marginalized. Concerted, continuous and sustained struggle unitedly by the working class and other marginalized section of the society can only reverse these pernicious penetration of the imperialist hegemony in our polity
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While we can be proud of the involvement of our rank and file membership in the common movement of the working class especially of the struggles organized in the last two decades against the economic policies of the Government of India, we have to be on constant vigil for maintaining it in the days to come. The ITEF leadership has taken up the challenges against outsourcing and have taken the bold stand that even with depleted workforce, we can avoid the entry of contract labour in our department. To make that endeavour successful , we must have committed, dedicated leadership.. We are confident that we shall succeed and shall be able to bring about career advancement to our members..
This issue of our journal will reach you at a very crucial time, when the entire working class in the country despite political and ideological differences will unitedly organize the workers March to Parliament on 23rd Feb. 2011. It will be the most tumultuous and magnificent rally of the workers the country's capital will witness on that day. It is not only our bounden duty to ensure that the ITEF comrades constitute the largest component of the Central Govt employees under the banner of the Confederation of Central Govt. employees and workers but also help other organizations and their members to reach and participate and make the contingent of the Central Govt. employees significant in that great rally.
Long live ITEF
With greetings
1st February.2011
KP Rajagopal
President.