Compensate kin of migrant workers who died during lockdown: Trade Unions to President Ram Nath Kovid

Ten central trade unions have petitioned President Ram Nath Kovid demanding adequate compensation to the dependents of those migrant workers, who lost their lives due to "sudden, unplanned" national lockdown, issue smart cards to all workers with countrywide validity to avail social security benefits and put on hold measures to suspend labour laws.

The trade unions -- INTUC, AITUC, HMS, CITU, AIUTUC, TUCC, SEWA, AICCTU, LPF, UTUC -- also wanted providing a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore – a revolving annual FUND for the purpose of implementing Social Security Schemes under the provisions of Unorganised Sector Workers’ Social Security Act, 2008.

In the joint letter, the trade union leaders said the national lockdown "catastrophically affected” the working people and the migrant workers were worst hit. They demanded that the dependents of migrant labourers who died during lockdown be adequately compensated.

They also wanted the government to issue smart cards to workers with Aadhaar Cards which should be useful for social security benefits.

The trade unions also claimed that the healthcare system was exposed to be woefully inadequate as the private hospitals either simply refused to cap the rates, as appealed by the government, for treatment of Covid-19 patients, stating they were uneconomical or simply closed doors.

"The ventilators, PPEs, sanitizer required were in extreme short supply. Only the public health system-the public hospitals, their doctors, their staff, the health scheme workers(ASHA Workers), Anganwadi workers, the municipal sanitation workers worked tirelessly, risking their own lives including being affected and even lost lives and won everyone's admiration and gratitude. It was the Ordnance Factory workers who swung into action to produce the much-needed ventilators and PPEs. The much-touted private enterprise failed completely," it said.

They were of the view that the government's action to put the wheels of the economy back on rails defied all logic and the past experience as well as the advice of renowned Indian economists. "The economy was already in recession from prior to the onset of the pandemic and was due to the majority of Indian people lacking even the minimum purchasing power. It was necessary to put money in their hands. The sudden lockdown compounded the problem," the letter said.

"Agriculture is pushed to corporatization through Ordinances. The Rs.20 lac crore package announced is once again a supply-side move rather than the necessary Demand-side push. Repeated Demands by the entire trade union movement for direct income-support and adequate food-support to all poor and non-income-tax-paying households is being arrogantly ignored...While GDP figures are bandied about as a measure of 'national progress', the question of equitable distribution is plainly ignored," the letter added.