MAINTAIN UNITY – DEFEAT THE
DISRUPTORS
The tradition of the Postal Trade
Union movement, from the very day of its inception, is the total unity of the
entire Postal employees and Central Govt. Employees – Whether they are called
Departmental Employees or Extra – Departmental Employees. Late Comrades:
Tarapada Mukherjee, Dada Ghosh, K. G. Bose, N. J. Iyer, Adinarayana, K. L. Moza
and all those great leaders stood for the unity of the entire Postal workers.
Unfortunately, of late, deliberate attempt is being made repeatedly, from
certain quarters, to split and weaken the rock – like unity of Postal
employees.
In 2008, all the unions of NFPE
took an unanimous decision to go on indefinite strike from 6th
January 2009, raising the main demands of the Gramin Dak Sevaks (GDS) i.e.;
reject the retrograde recommendations of the Nataraja Murthy Committee report.
But suddenly a strike notice was served by the then GDS union General Secretary
for indefinite strike from 17.12.2008 i.e,
18 days before the proposed indefinite strike of NFPE. Other unions were
not consulted. After serving the strike notice only it was known to others.
What was the need for going on strike in a so hurriedly manner, when NFPE was
ready for a joint strike from 06.01.2009. Will be sky come down if the strike
is delayed for 18 days to ensure cent percent unity of Postal Employees. The
intention was very clear to divide the unity of the Postal workers. The
leadership of the so – called GDS union played in the hands of the Govt. and
the Postal bureaucracy who are hell-bound to demolish the rock-like unity of
Postal workers. With the help of the so-called GDS union General Secretary, the
Government succeeded to some extent in creating a division among Departmental
employees and GDS.
Now again, the same thing is
being repeated. The entire Central Government Employees, including the National
Federation of Postal Employees has decided to go on a nation-wide one day
strike on 12th December 2012. One of the major demands of the strike
charter is the issues related to the GDS employees – i.e.; 7th Pay
Commission to examine the wages and service conditions of GDS, 50% DA merger
for GDS and not 5% TRCA increase, Departmentalization of GDS and extending all
the benefits of departmental employees, Bonus discrimination, protection of
allowance, Health Scheme, time bound promotion etc. Intensive campaign all over
the country is taking place for making the strike a grand success. The strike
was declared on 2012 July 26th in the historic Parliament March in
which about 20000 Central Government Employees participated in which a large
majority of them being Postal & RMS employees including Gramin Dak Sevaks.
Again, all of a sudden, the
General Secretary of the truncated GDS Union, gave another strike notice for
indefinite strike from 16th October 2012. When the entire employees
are preparing for a joint strike, what is the need of giving a sudden notice
for another strike. Again, the intention is very clear. They are playing in the
hands of the Government. The Central Government wants to scuttle the December
joint strike by creating division among the Departmental Employees and GDS. The
leader is behaving as an agent of the Government and poor GDS are the victims.
GDS are not going to be benefited by such sectarian strike.
Shall we allow such leaders to
break the unity of Postal workers, by stabbing from the back? Shall we allow
the Government to break our unity by joining hands with such leaders? No, we
shall not. We shall expose those disruptors and at any cost, shall uphold the
unity of the Postal workers and march forward under the banner of NFPE for
protecting the interest of the Postal employees including Gramin Dak Sevaks.
Let us fight against the policy of the Government and make the 12th
December strike a thundering success.