Mass Struggle
Srinagar, October 23: The Jammu and Kashmir administration’s recent notification under SRO 324 to acquire powers to retire government employees at the age of 48 years or after completing 22 years of service is draconian and is against the interests of the lakhs of employees working in the region.
The notification/SRO aims to keep the employees under pressure which is bound to cause insecurity among them. It would serve as a tool to the government and bureaucrats to suppress their subordinates. A sword of uncertainty has been kept on the heads of employees which can also be exploited by their superiors.
There were already several laws to govern employees and what was the need to issue such draconian laws. The objective of such laws is only to prevent employees’ unions from raising their voice against the ‘anti-employee’ policies of the government and the management.
The BJP government has already withdrawn several rights of the workers by suspending labour laws, in several BJP ruled states. The three labour laws passed in the Parliament at the far end of the truncated monsoon session constitute a grave assault on the working class of the country. The Modi government has rammed through these three anti-worker bills by muzzling parliament during the pandemic period.
The Central Government is going ahead with implementation of pro-corporate and anti-working class neo-liberal reforms in an aggressive manner. Large scale outsourcing, ban on creation of posts, non-filling up of about seven lakhs vacancies, move to corporatise various functions of the Government, freezing and impounding of Dearness Allowance and Dearness Relief, closure or merger of various Central Government establishments, refusal to scrap Contributory Pension Scheme (NPS) or to guarantee 50% of last pay drawn as minimum pension, refusal to modify retrograde recommendations of 7th Pay Commission.
All these measures have deepened the anger and discontentment among the ranks of employees.
Different platforms of trade unions and employees federations in the country have decided to go far general strike on 26 November for their demands. We appeal to the trade union movement of the country to enlist the demand for scraping of this draconian SRO in their demand charter also.
