Members of various trade unions and employees associations took out protest marches and staged demonstrations across the district and taluk headquarters in Haveri, Gadag and Dharwad districts on Monday in response to a nation-wide strike call given by the Joint Committee of Trade Unions (JCTU).
The JCTU has given the call in protest against what it termed as anti-people, anti-farmer, anti-worker policies of the Union Government and has sought repeal of a few laws and fulfilment of various demands.
In Hubballi, the trade union members belonging to various sectors, including, banking, insurance, telecommunication, transport, apart from those from unorganised sectors, street vendors, autorickshaw drivers and others, took out a protest march on the thoroughfares of the city.
The protest march began from Indira Glass House and after covering Basava Vana, Kittur Chennamma Circle, Sangolli Rayanna Circle, the protest march concluded at the Mini Vidhana Soudha where memoranda addressed to the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister were submitted to the Hubballi tahsildar.
Addressing the protestors, JCTU convenor Mahesh Pattar, trade union leaders Stephen Jayachandra, Devanand Jagapur, Ashok Barki, V.K. Bannigol, Gurusiddappa Ambiger, A.S. Peerjade, B.S. Soppin and other speakers condemned in strong terms what they said are wrong policies of the State and Union Governments.
They said that the new labour codes of the Union Government will push the working class into neo slavery. A charter of demands containing 12 demands, including control of inflation, increasing minimum wages to ₹26,000, social security, stoppage of privatisation, and others have already been submitted to the Government by JCTU, they said.
While banks, insurance offices remained closed, the APMC Yard in Hubballi and Dharwad remained shut on account of the strike.
In Dharwad, LIC employees in Dharwad division comprising 15 branches extended support to the strike call by staging demonstration. General Secretary of Insurance Employees Union Uday Gadagkar and member A.M. Khan said that the strike is against the anti-people policies of the Government.
Strongly condemning disinvestment in public sector undertakings like LIC, they said that these are property of the people and selling them to a few individuals is anti-democratic. Along with other demands, LIC employees strongly demanded an immediate stop to the IPO of LIC and termed it anti-national. Similar demonstrations were held in front of their respective offices by the employees in various places.
