The Hindu : National : Manmohan's remark draws flak

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Wednesday, Aug 17, 2005

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National

Manmohan's remark draws flak

Special Correspondent

It is one-sided and misplaced: Dasgupta

"We do not agree with the Prime Minister. His attitude is let management do what it chooses to but workers should always be cooperating with it"

KOLKATA: : Senior Left trade union leaders have criticised Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Independence Day remark that workers "... .should work in cooperation with the management so that profitability of enterprises increases and they also benefit from this."

M.K. Pandhe, all-India president of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions and member of the Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), told The Hindu on Tuesday, "We do not agree with the Prime Minister. His attitude is let management do what it chooses to but workers should always be cooperating with it."

He said, "We cannot accept this from a Prime Minister who does not even find the time for an Indian Labour Conference and has not over the past 14 months [since he took over] taken up the Bill lying in the Rajya Sabha for nearly 15 years on the subject of workers' participation in management."

Gurudas Dasgupta, general secretary of the All-India Trade Union Congress and senior MP of the Communist Party of India, said, "the Prime Minister's remark was not only one-sided and misplaced but also angered those in the trade union movement".

Dr. Singh's statement would send a wrong message to employers and help the administration close its eyes to realities in industrial disputes.

A resolution passed at the convention supported the general strike called by Left trade unions for September 29 in protest against the Centre's economic policies.

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