The three-day strike of Coal India Limited (CIL) workers had a significant effect on coal production at the Indian government-owned company, suggesting that a large majority of its more than 500,000 regular and contract employees had joined the march.
Miners and ancillary workers mounted the march — which ran from Thursday, July 2 through Saturday, July 4—in defiance of management threats that they would be punished for joining a “illegal” job action. CIL has recently deployed a large number of paramilitary personnel from the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) with the dual purpose of threatening workers and preventing permanent employees from persuading precariously working temporary workers to join them.
On the first day of the strike, the management of CIL reported that it had no effect on production. This straightforward effort to demoralize and confuse strikers has manifestly failed.
Earlier this week, CIL said that during the three-day work stoppage, average daily production decreased by 56 percent to 573,000 tonnes, compared to an average daily production of 1,29 million tons in the 10 days prior to the strike. The executive of the firm, who spoke to the Indian Economic Times, reported that the loss of sales amounted to at least Rs. 4 billion ( US$ 54 million). For the fiscal year 2019-2020, CIL’s overall revenue was roughly Rs. 1,24 trillion (USD 16 billion). The company accounts for 80 per cent of the country ‘s total coal production, which is the primary fuel used for electricity generation in India.
The organization also said that, on average, 36% of employees attended the three days of the strike. Although management statements should not be taken at face value, given CIL ‘s previous lies and apparent interest in underestimating strike support, this would mean that almost two-thirds of staff were out of work at any point during the strike.
The miners protested against the new privatization initiatives by the far-right Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP) government of India. In mid-May, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP made a “quantum leap” in pro-investor “reforms” the flagship, alongside pushing staff back to work in the background of the COVID-19 pandemic, of their post-stop “economic revival” strategy.
As part of this plan, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that coal mining, which has been the exclusive preserve of CIL and other central and state-owned enterprises since Indira Gandhi’s Congress Party government nationalized the coal industry in 1975, will now be open to private bidders.
Since now on, private firms, both international and domestic, will be able to compete for coal blocks. In the future, they might also be permitted to export coal given the fact that India currently imports 20% of its coal requirements, costing around Rs. 300 billion (USD 4 billion ) annually.
By opening up the coal industry to the private sector, the BJP government is following the long-standing policy of BJP-and Congress Party-led governments alike. Last November, Reuters stated that government sources said they plan to make coal mining in India attractive to “major miners such as Glencore PLC, BHP Group, Anglo American PLC and Peabody Energy Corp.”
In announcing the government’s privatization plans, Sitharaman said, “We have been suffocating the coal sector by controlling it and preventing it from generating what the industry requires.” In other words, the environment and the employment and working conditions of miners are to be ravaged in the interests of private profit, while the government defends increased exploitation in the name of “effective”
Strong support for the strike reflects the consciousness among CIL workers, who are already working under harsh conditions, of the danger that this poses to their jobs, salaries and the environment.
The arrival of giant transnational mining firms would eventually lead to a further rise in the shortage of labor. CIL, like most other Indian public sector companies, has seen a massive increase in the proportion of low-paid, precarious contract workers in the last two decades. Currently, more than 200,000 workers, or some 40 percent of CIL ‘s workforce, are supplied by “corporate shops” or labor agencies.
The staff are also opposed to CIL ‘s proposal, adopted under pressure from the Modi Government, to turn the Central Mine Planning & Design Institute Limited (CMPDIL) into a separate entity. This move would allow CMPDIL to work for private companies to generate income. It will also pave the way for the privatization of CMPDIL and open the door to CIL hiring private mining consulting firms.
Following last week’s protest, the BJP government is moving forward with its proposals to open up the coal industry to the private sector. It is currently soliciting tenders for the first round of coal-block sales.
In the meantime, Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd., CIL’s Odisha-based subsidiary, has announced that it would dock employees who engaged in the “illegal” 8-day pay strike on July 2-4.
The business and the government have been emboldened by the awareness that the five trade union federations that called for the July 2-4 strike are firmly opposed to an indefinite strike that would paralyze electricity output across the country and, above all, to the political threat of the working class to the Modi government and to the ruling class agenda of stagnation, privatization and “economic compression”
Unless the coal miners were to make their fight against privatization the spearhead of a counter-offensive of the working class, there is no doubt that they will win mass support. In the months before the BJP government enforced its ill-prepared anti-COVID 19 shutdown, there was a rising wave of militant workers’ struggles and anti-government demonstrations. This included a one-day all-India general strike against the BJP government’s big business policies, in which tens of millions participated, and a nationwide mass rally against Modi’s anti-Muslim Citizenship Amendment Act.
The pandemic has only intensified the humanitarian crisis facing workers and laborers in India. The government’s poorly orchestrated shutdown left tens of millions without jobs or revenue. The government, with the full backing of the ruling class, is now trying to exacerbate the crisis in a raft of socially explosive anti-worker initiatives, even as India emerges as one of the world’s biggest COVID-19 epicenters.
The five trade union federations that called for a strike last week against Coal India include: the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), a union affiliate of the Congress Party, the Indian bourgeoisie ‘s chosen ruling party until recently; and the Indian Trade Union Center (CITU), the trade union wing of the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM. For decades, the CPM has become an integral part of the political elite, promoting and enforcing “pro-investor” policies, while actively controlling and crushing the opposition of the working class. It responded to the Indian ruling elite ‘s embrace of Modi and his Hindu supremacist BJP by shifting still further to the right and redoubled its efforts to link the working class to the Congress Party and the Indian state.
The call for a strike was also supported by Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh. The BMS is the trade union arm of the racist RSS, the clandestine group that formed the BJP, to which Modi and the top BJP leaders continue to pay tribute.
In an attempt to contain the anger of the workers, the five federations announced plans to hold another day of strike action on August 18. That day is the deadline set by the Modi Government for private companies, including transnational mining giants, to submit their coal-block auction bids.
