VIJAYAWADA: General secretary of the State unit of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) Potluri Nageswara Rao on Saturday felt that trade unions could play a crucial role in combating the child labour problem by not allowing children to work in factories and establishments.

Addressing the inaugural session of a two-day workshop on child labour for trade union leaders of Krishna, East Godavari and West Godavari districts, organised by the Andhra Pradesh Federation of Trade Unions for the Elimination of Child Labour (APFTUECL), Mr. Rao observed that many firms preferred to employ children at work to save on labour charges.

Mr. Rao, also the general secretary of the APFTUECL, said that the federation would cover all regions by conducting sensitisation programmes for the representatives of all trade unions.

The representatives, in turn, would have to spread the message among their colleagues.

M. Sarjana Rao, Additional Divisional Railway Manager of the South Central Railway (Vijayawada division), welcomed the trade unions' gesture of conducting sensitisation programmes on the child labour problem across the State by shunning their differences.

"To my knowledge, this is the only issue on which all trade unions have come to a consensus," he said in a lighter vein.

Rehabilitation

Asserting that the railways would not encourage child labour, Mr. Sarjana Rao said he would do his best to provide rehabilitation to orphans and street children who were reaching the city every day by several trains.

K. Krishna Murthy, Project officer of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), said that the ILO was a tripartite body consisting of the Government, employers and the trade unions. "We cannot take up programmes without the support of the employers and the unions.

This sensitisation programme will become a role model to the trade unions in other States," he said.

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