HUBLI: Labour policies have remained the same over the years and consequently, the working class is facing untold miseries, Udayrao Patvardhan, general secretary of All India Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, has said.

Addressing presspersons here on Wednesday, Mr. Patvardhan said that instead of taking action against private institutions and industries for not following labour laws, the governments themselves were exploiting the working class.

The governments were slowly doing away with the system of permanent employment by employing people on contract basis and daily wage basis. They were following methods, which, they had said, were against labour laws, he said.

People were being recruited on contract basis, where there was no job security, and in many of the industries the working class was not provided with facilities such as provident fund, insurance and so on. As the governments were exploiting workers, industrialists and businessmen felt encouraged to exploit workers, Mr. Patvardhan said.

On the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme launched by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government, he said it was nothing but a replica of the job guarantee scheme introduced by the Maharashtra Government, which had turned out to be a failure. Instead of taking up construction just for the sake of giving employment, the Government should think of providing "productive employment" to the unemployed, he said.

Mr. Patvardhan said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had promised the Mazdoor Sangh that he would write to the States asking them to take steps to make industries adhere to labour laws. "If the Prime Minister acts according to his promise, then the Mazdoor Sangh would pursue the matter at the State level through agitations and other means," he said.

Meeting

Mr. Patvardhan said he was touring the States to take stock of the situation and discuss the issues related to the working class with the local units. The problems would be listed and presented at the 110th all India executive committee meeting in Bangalore in the second week of September. The next course of action would be chalked out at the meeting, he added.

K.M. Suryanarayan Rao, general secretary of the Karnataka State unit of the Mazdoor Sangh, said issues such as recognising Anganwadi workers as regular government employees, pending wage negotiation at the Karnataka Power Corporation Limited, the plight of the unorganised sector would be raised at the meeting.

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