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  • Victory against all odds in the MSWU elections!

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    MARUTI SUZUKI WORKERS UNION

    (Registration No. 1923)

    IMT Manesar, Gurgaon

     

     

    Ref. No…MNR/4/14                                                               Date… 11/04/2014

     

     

    Press Release

     

    With the gate meeting in front of the Maruti Suzuki main gate in Manesar in the afternoon at 3pm today, we the Maruti Suzuki Workers Union (MSWU) have reclaimed after two years, what has been rightfully ours. Over 3000 workers attended the gate meeting which was addressed by the new MSWU Union body, including President Pawan Kumar and General Secretary Sanjay Kumar, along with the workers and Union body members from Suzuki Powertrain India Employees Union (SPIEU) and Suzuki Motorcycles India Employees Union (SMIEU). A wave of energy declared that we have ended the regime of fear that was thrust upon us workers by the owners and managers and administrators. With the election and re-formation of our Union on April 4th, today’s meeting is an open declaration of our untiring will to fight against exploitation-repression for all workers.

     

    We have won 11 of 12 seats against the management installed puppet panel in the Union elections on April 4th, with a margin of 80% for most members. Comrade Ramniwas of the Provisional Working Committee of MSWU said that “this victory validates our long continuous untiring struggle of more than two years, against the exploitation-repression by the combined might of the company management-state administration-police and all its tentacles.” This win comes in the wake of not only our long struggle since 4th June 2011 to establish our Union rights and collective power, but also after the unfazed struggle of terminated and jailed workers since 18th July 2012. Since that date, it has been more than 20months, that 147 workers including our entire Union body continue to be in jail, without any bail, in the most severest travesty of justice in the criminal justice system in India. 546 permanent and over 1800 contract workers continue to be terminated from our services even while the legal cases goes on endlessly. The company maliks and managers and the sarkari babus and netas and the entire ruling elite have nakedly united to ‘teach workers a lesson’ for demanding our just rights and for asserting our collective will. Even the courts have punished us for supposedly ‘adversely affecting foreign direct investment’. We only demanded and continue to demand our dignity as workers, our right to form a Union, and the right of contract workers who are worst faced in the situation. In the last two years, we have continued to demand justice and immediate release of all arrested workers and reinstatement of all terminated workers, and a tripartite negotiation to resolve the issue. We only dared to be united to demand this.

     

    For this elections that was due this year, after we formed Maruti Suzuki Workers Union in March 2012 (registration no.1923), the management tried all means to coerce us and install its own puppet Union. It engaged in all manners of conspiracy to divide the workers along lines of permanent and contract, along regions, along various plants, and so on. After it terminated the services if over 2300 workers in July 2012, it hired new workers who were made to toe its line and work in an atmosphere of fear and punishment. They were not allowed to even talk to the terminated workers who were leading the struggle, or even to independent and other trade unions in the area. Recently the management hired 250 new recruits from the Gurgaon plant who they thought would act in their favour, in order to pitch them against the Manesar workers. It tried to disenfranchise the jailed and terminated workers against what is laid down in our Union Constitution, and the pliant labour department had followed suit. It put the police to its use to pick up any worker who would dare to even distribute a parcha. And it propped up candidates for elections who were close to them in one panel and coerced workers to vote for them.

     

    Even against these policies of divide and rule, of repression and threats, we have emerged victorious. With the active support and solidarity of jailed and terminated workers, the struggling workers who stood against the management panel won 11 out of 12 seats. The evening of 4th April was a spirit of recapturing of the factory for workers, as the street in front erupted with celebrations after two years. Workers from inside the plant came with food of the factory canteen for the terminated workers saying that it won’t be long before their struggle also is a win and all arrested workers are also released.

     

    An unprecedented solidarity of workers to the cause of struggle of the last 3 years has made this possible. Solidarity of the workers and Union body of Suzuki Powertrain India Employees Union and Suzuki Motorcycles India Employees Union must especially be mentioned and welcomed, which opens up yet again the possibility of united action by workers in the belt. Union members from nearby Suzuki Powertrain had sent a clear warning to its management against any use of unfair practices in the elections in Maruti Suzuki, on the event of which they would even go for strike. In today’s gate meeting Comrade Anil, President of SPIEU reiterated this unity. Comrade Anil Kumar, president of SMIEU also stressed on strengthening this unity, and making it the unity of workers in the entire industrial belt of Gurgaon-Manesar-Dharuhera-Bawal.

     

    We would like to welcome the new MSWU(figures out of around 1000 votes polled):

     

    President: Pawan Kumar (796 votes); General Secretary: Sanjay Kumar (789 votes); Chief Patron: Manoj Kumar (728 votes); Vice President: Dharmender Kumar; Secretary: Naveen Kumar; Treasurer: Jitender Kumar; Organising Secretary: Amit Chaudhri; Legal Advisor: Saurabh Jain; Executive Committee: Rajendra, Sandip, Sanjeev, Rajkumar

     

    Our struggle has entered a new phase with this victory.It’s a validation of our continuing struggle not only for workers at Maruti Suzuki but for all workers here and everywhere who struggle everyday against exploitation-repression for their Union rights and collective power and dignity.

     

     

     

    (Ramniwas, Mahabir, Rajpal, Yogesh, Katar)

    Provisional Working Committee

    Maruti Suzuki Workers Union

  • Rabkor Interview with Sergei Kirichuk of Borotba on 11th April 2014

     

    Democracy and Class Struggle have used automatic translation of this interview with Rabkor into  English any mistakes in translation are ours – we have modified some text to make more sense.

     

    We have noticed some anti Mao material on Rabkor which is rather confused we suggest Rabkor publish the following has a description of MLM for your readers

     

     http://

  • Ukraine: Donetsk against Greystone Mercenaries affiliate of Blackwater brought in by Putsch supporting Oligarch Serhiy Taruta

    Greystone is a former Xe (aka Blackwater) affiliate with offices in Virginia and the United Arab Emirates. Employing “personnel from the best militaries throughout the world,” the company offers “large scale stability operations requiring large numbers of people to assist in securing a region.”

    “We are particularly concerned that the operation involves some 150 American mercenaries from a

  • Extended Unemployment Compensation (EUC) passes Senate

    Washington, DC – Legislation to extend unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless passed the Senate, April 7. Nearly 3 million workers have gone without unemployment insurance since Congress failed to extend benefits last December.

    The bill now moves to the House where it faces opposition from Republicans. House Republican leader Jon Boehner says he considers the extension “unworkable.” Many House Republicans blame the jobless for high unemployment rates.

    The Democratic Party leadership gave Republicans the power to veto an extension of unemployment benefits when they refused to include the measure in last year’s budget compromise.

  • Say no to U.S. Intervention in the Ukraine

    What the U.S. is doing in the Ukraine is nothing short of criminal. The U.S. is backing outright fascists, in an effort to put the country under the domination of the West. The White House and Pentagon are acting as a threat to peace by imposing sanctions on Russia and sending warships and missiles into the region. All progressive people should oppose the ongoing U.S. intervention in the Ukraine.

    In February, reactionary mobs with fascist gangs in the lead managed to bring down the democratically-elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych. This was the culmination of a process promoted by the U.S. and countries of the European Union to bring instability and turmoil to the Ukraine. The U.S. alone spent about $5 billion on the project. The result was there for all of us to see on TV: neo-Nazis trying to destroy monuments to the heroes of World War II and the socialist past and seizing government buildings.

    To say that the movement that ousted President Yanukovych was something progressive or democratic is to confuse right and wrong. Certainly there were legitimate reasons to be dissatisfied with Yanukovych and his oligarch associates, but that does not change the reactionary nature of the anti-government turmoil.

    It is a fact that the leading forces in this right-wing movement, such as Right Sector and Svoboda, have their roots in the most disgusting of Ukraine’s political currents. They see themselves as the political heirs of the Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, an anti-communist, anti-Semitic butcher who first did Hitler’s bidding and then went on to be a servant of the CIA. Look at the photos of the turmoil in Keiv and other Ukrainian cities; the portrait of Stepan Bandera shows up again and again. In the Ukraine, the White House and its EU allies are supporting ugly nationalists, who preach hatred against other nationalities, especially Russians, and who will carry out the most reactionary of agendas if they are successful in consolidating power.

    Given this reality it is not surprising that the people of Crimea, who are mainly ethnic Russians, voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Russia. They did not want to live under the monsters who roam the halls of government in Kiev. They understand what these vicious chauvinists are all about. After all, one of the first measures passed by Ukraine’s new regime was abolishing the equality of languages.

    It is also understandable and just that people in the eastern Ukraine are rising up and attempting to take things in their own hands. They are standing up to fascists and a U.S./EU power grab.

    The Ukraine is an important prize for the Western imperialist powers, who covet its natural resources and industries and plan to make use of its strategic location. Their goal is the complete encirclement of Russia. Western powers have prepared a large loan from the International Monetary Fund, and in return, the Kiev authorities are preparing austerity measures that will further impoverish the people, starting with a 50% rise in the price of gasoline on May 1.

    Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. has systematically expanded its aggressive military alliance, NATO, throughout Eastern Europe and the Baltic states. It has reached the point where Russia is close to being surrounded. Russia’s elite and their political representative Vladimir Putin want to expand their sphere of influence and control. As a result they find themselves being drawn into a conflict with the Western imperial powers.

    The U.S. government has no right to complain about the actions of Russia. Its moral authority is less than zero. The U.S. invaded and occupied Iraq and Afghanistan. Along with NATO, it destroyed Libya. It is trying to subjugate Syria and finances the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The list of current U.S. wars and interventions is much longer, but the point is clear enough: Washington DC is the capitol of an empire and those that speak for it are hypocrites and liars.

    All progressive people should oppose sanctions on Russia. We have seen this before. Sanctions are a step towards war. Likewise, we need to be clear about how we assess events in the Ukraine. A victory for fascists and their Western backers would be a setback for people everywhere.

    Here in the U.S. we are under attack by a system that takes away our jobs, exploits us when we work and thrives on inequality and oppression. Our enemy is right here at home.

    End U.S./European Union Intervention in the Ukraine!
    Stop U.S. Funding for Ukrainian Fascists!
    No Sanctions on Russia!

  • Ukraine : Freedom Kiev Putschist Style

    Kiev, Ukraine: Office of the Communist Party of Ukraine, torched and vandalized by fascists on April 10, 2014.

    The Communist Party of Ukraine’s headquarters in Kiev was set on fire April 9, just hours after a court ordered the Interior Ministry to remove fascists who’ve occupied it since the coup.

    Euromaidan Self Defense goons, now employed by the Interior Ministry, were photographed

  • Donetsk : Solidarity with Donetsk Miners in their struggle for democracy against Kiev Putschists – Solidarity with the working people of Donetsk – Democracy and Class Struggle – Wales

    The city of Donetsk was founded in 1869 by a Welsh businessman, John Hughes, who constructed a steel plant and several coal mines in the region; the town was thus named Yuzovka (Юзовка) in recognition of his role in its founding (“Yuz” being a Russian or Ukrainian approximation of Hughes).

    During Soviet times, the city’s steel industry was expanded. In 1924 it was renamed Stalino (Сталино),

  • A Federal Solution to The Ukraine’s problems which a unitary State cannot solve

    Nicolai Petro on Unitary Ukranian State , Autonomy or  Federalism the solution ?

    See Also :

    http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/ukraine-sergei-kirichuk-of-union_5.html
    http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/grasping-principal-contradiction-is-key.html

    :

  • PUDR Statement opposing award of death penalty as punishment for rape

    Peoples Union for Democratic Rights Press Release # April 9, 2014 Peoples Union of Democratic Rights (PUDR) is concerned that close on the heels of the Supreme Court’s judgment of 21st January 2014, whereby the Court had commuted the death sentences of 15 convicts to life imprisonment, the Delhi High Court and the Mumbai Sessions […]

  • The 17 Contradictions of Capitalism by David Harvey

    You thought capitalism was permanent? Think again. Leading Marxist thinker Professor David Harvey unravels the contradictions at the heart of capitalism — its drive, for example, to accumulate capital beyond the means of investing it.David Harvey (@profdavidharvey) is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Geography at the Graduate Centre of the City University of New York. This event