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CITU — CPI(M) Hooligans Murder CESC Contract Workers' Union Leader & Assault Many Striking Workers!

Here is a translation of the leaflet of SSC (Sramik Sangran Committee) in this regard:
You may also read the Times of India coverage on this issue clicking here and the Tehelka coverage clicking here.

Protest against the killing of Ramparvesh Singh, leader of the ongoing struggle of the contract workers of C.E.S.C.

Ramparvesh Singh, a struggling worker, has been killed brutally. Hired goons of C.P.I.M. have murdered him on March 10, 2008 – a leader of the ongoing struggle of the contract workers of C.E.S.C., who was also the vice-president of C.E.S.C. Contractors Mazdoor Sangh. March 10 was the first day of a 48 hour strike called by the contract workers. With the deliberate intention of breaking this strike and thus smashing the struggle of the contract workers, murderous hooligans of C.P.I.M.-C.I.T.U. had pounced upon the striking workers, murdering Ramparvesh and injuring at least 15 others. Now, C.P.I.M. is not even feigning to respect the minimum democratic norms. They are themselves tearing away their pro-worker mask and increasingly exposing their deathly fangs in their brutal strikes against the struggling working people, including the workers and peasants. They had perpetrated genocide on the peasants of Nandigram. They had tried to scare the mass of rural poor revolting against the corruption in the public distribution system by attacking them with murderous weapons. Now they have murdered cold-bloodedly a struggling worker. So desperate have they become to serve the interest of the capitalists as the latter's trusted agents, that they are stopping at nothing in doing so.

Though Ramparvesh has been murdered by the hooligans of C.I.T.U., it is beyond any doubt that the real perpetrator behind this incident is the owner of C.E.S.C. It is the owner of C.E.S.C. who has orchestrated this brutal assault of C.I.T.U. hooligans in the same way as a behind-the-stage puppeteer draws the strings to make the puppets on the stage dance. For the past 20 to 25 years, C.E.S.C. has been gradually decreasing the number of permanent workers, and making the contract workers to do on a regular basis the jobs once performed by the permanent workers. But in return, let alone making these workers permanent, even the identity of electrical workers has not been given to them by C.E.S.C. Showing them as ‘road-construction worker', forcing them to work at a miserly wage for days together, depriving them of the minimum provisions of the permanent workers, C.E.S.C. has amassed crores of rupees as profit. The workers had to starve. Working without the minimum safety measures in dangerous high voltage lines, many workers lost their life in accidents. What is more scandalously inhuman is that C.E.S.C. has concealed the corpse of many workers who have died in accidents at work so as to avoid paying the necessary compensations.

Workers had to bear with these coercion and tyranny throughout the last 20 to 25 years. They had joined at different times almost all trade unions affiliated to the various parliamentary parties. Their life's bitter experience has taught them that all these established trade unions are nothing but mere touts of the owners of C.E.S.C. They want to keep the workers as slaves of the owners. This experience has led them in early 2006 to throw away all the old established unions and their leaders, and set up a new union by their independent effort. Moreover, they decided to keep the leadership and control of the new union in the hands of the workers themselves. This is what has unsettled the owner of C.E.S.C. and the old union leaderships. Owner of C.E.S.C. has tried in various ways with the help of the old union leaders throughout the past 2 years to break up this new struggling union. But all their concerted efforts have been foiled by the contract workers by the strength of their unity. The new union has exhibited its might in yet another incident. In October 2007, another worker died in a work-related accident while working on a high-voltage line near Rabindra Sadan in Kolkata. C.E.S.C. again tried to steal away the corpse from P.G. Hospital . Contract workers under the leadership of the new union not only foiled this effort by their united vigil, but also forced the C.E.S.C. management by their united struggle to sit for negotiation with them and give compensation to the dead worker's family. Following this, the workers decided to go on a two-day strike under the leadership of the new union demanding the settlement of their charter of demands, which has been long overdue. Almost all workers responded actively to this call of strike. Hence the murderous hooligans assembled by C.I.T.U. attacked the struggling workers and killed brutally their frontline leader Ramparvesh Singh.

But, they do not know that whatever terror they may unleash, they will never be able to stamp out the emerging new tendency of the workers and the labouring poor to raise their head in independent struggle. Their murderous assault has not been able to crush the struggling workers of C.E.S.C. Instead of being broken, the strike spread like wildfire after the murder. Spelt blood of martyr Ramparvesh Singh has made the workers more determined in their struggle.

Today, C.E.S.C. workers are not alone in their struggle. The labouring poor are being aroused in resistance by the unfettered assault of the globalizationliberalization, carried on in the interest of the imperialists and the Indian big bourgeoisie. The labouring poor, including the workers and peasants, are not only trying to build up their own independent struggle rejecting all the old established parties and their mass organizations, but these downtrodden are now trying to establish their own leadership and own control over their struggles and their organizations. The contract workers of C.E.S.C. have also taken to this path, and it is for treading this path that their leader Ramparvesh has been murdered by the owner and his touts. But Ramparvesh will continue to live; Ramparvesh will live amidst this newly emerging struggle of the toiling masses. This newly emerging struggle, in the days to come, will not remain bounded within the confines of only resisting the owner-capitalist's assault, but will extend itself to the struggle for eradicating the capitalist's reign of exploitation and coercion in its entirety. To the entire mass of toiling people, this struggle has given its clarion-call ---- organize, build up your resistance against the capitalist's coercion, further your struggle with the aim of eradicating for ever the present reign of exploitation and coercion.

With struggling regards, Shramik Sangram Committee

Date: March 13, 2008 || Published by Tushar Bhattacharya, 142/3 Bisalaksmitala Road , Kolkata – 700 060 & Printed at Kamala Press, 209A Bidhan Sarani, Kolkata – 700 006