The
strike call made by the Trade Unions is based on demands that cannot be solved
in a discussion or within a time-frame by the Government nor by the Union
Leaders themselves if they are in power. Their main demand, according to Kali Ghosh
of C I T U, is to prevent price rise and corruption in Government. Both the
demands are hazy and difficult to solve in a jiffy. It is also not a convincing
reason for precipitating into a strike call since matters like price rise are
economic phenomenon which can be tackled only gradually. As for the corruption
there is a judicial system to take care of it in India and trade Unions can
leave it at that like the rest of the population do.
The strike affected the states individually by different ways.
The Kerala and Tripura were badly affected. There were no open shops, no buses,
schools nor Hotels. Only Sun did rise and wind blew tepidly. Whereas in Tamil Nadu
and Mumbai the strike call did not affect public life greatly. And all other States
were affected by the strike in varying degrees in between the two extremes.
The Banks did not
work anywhere. The Bank Unions are left oriented and they will not sit still
when the left Trade Unions call for a strike and other than that the Bank employees
have no demands directly affecting their pay or service conditions. (They are against financial reforms, so they
have a number of demands to roll back many measures taken by the Government
pertaining to Banking for which they strike work more often than not) The non-functioning of Banks in a country for
two days together is indeed a serious problem for both Government and public. The
Trade Unions got a boost with the strike of Banks as the general public in no States were left unaffected by their strike-call.
In fact the whole thing turned out to be a war against
General public by the Trade Unions for no apparent reason.
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