All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) organised a protest on 8 December in solidarity with the 8 workers of Pricol Ltd, of an auto company in Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu outrageously sentenced to ‘double life-term sentences’ by a Trial Court in Coimbatore in connection with a case of tragic death of the Company’s HR vice-president, without any evidence whatsoever. For the past decade Pricol witnessed a massive workers’ movement against the Company for its notorious anti-worker, anti-union activities, continuous exploitation, arbitrary dismissal, wage cuts, employing contractual labour in core production and so on. The company management as part of its ploy to crush and deny industrial democracy, tried to frame the Trade Union including AICCTU All India President S Kumarasami for the tragic death of the HR vice president in 2009.
The Pricol movement was part of the nationwide labour struggles against the increasing exploitative and anti-worker and violation/erosion of labour laws seen from Pricol to Regent Cements (Puducherry) to Maruti Manesar and so on. Since the Maruti Manesar struggle the country has witnessed quick and ‘pro-corporate’ judgements and observations like “denying bail to workers because it affects the investment atmosphere”. And at the same time, millions of Indian workers are reeling under the intense anti-worker environment perpetuated by the government- judiciary- corporate nexus in India. Comrade Agnitra from AICCTU giving a brief about the Pricol movement spoke on the increasing worker exploitation and changes in labour laws. Comrades Nayanjyoti from KNS, Vasudevan of NTUI, and Santosh Rai of AICCTU expressed their solidarity with the struggling workers of Pricol and that the trade unions will fight against the anti-labour laws and assault on rights of workers. The increasing confrontations between workers and company management are results of attempts to change the already anti-worker atmosphere drastically in the favour of corporate companies by enacting anti-worker and anti-trade union rules and regulations.
