CITU

Siliguri 15th March: The City is still covered under the winter-cold, but the workers have fully warmed up themselves to greet the thousands of delegates of C.I.T.U. 9th State Conference, who will be gathering in this blooming city. Whoever will be approaching Siliguri by road, by train or by air, will feel the warmth of the preparatory activities for this conference through the rallies, squads, banners, hoardings, and graphitises on the wall even from a distance of 40 / 50 Kms, indicating the major event of C.I.T.U. State Conference to take place between 1 & 5th March 2008.

Reception Committee was formed on 9th of December, 2007 in presence of a mammoth gathering of workers, students, youth, women and all sections of toiling mass for holding this conference. The Jubilation could be felt in the first meeting of the Reception Committee addressed by Comrade Kali Ghose, General Secretary, CITU State Committee as well Comrade Ashok Bhattacharyya, Hon’ble Minister of Urban Development, West Bengal and Chairman of the Reception Committee. The call for contributing generously to make the conference successful was responded with handing over an amount of Rs. 1 lakh to Comrade Kali Ghose through Comrade Ajit Sarkar, the Secretary of the Reception Committee. The entire amount was collected from the participating organisations in the meeting. Besides the initial contribution all the leaders of the organisations pledged their contribution voluntarily to spill over the estimate of the Reception Committee for holding the conference along with a mass rally of 1 lakh people.

The important feature of this 9th conference taking place in the month of March is that all the Unions have completed their accounting upto 31/12/2007 within the month of January got all those audited as per statute and duly submitted the ‘H’ form to the Registrar of Trade Unions and submitting the copies of all the documents to CITU State Committee Office along with requisite affiliation fees in order to have their right of delegation in the conference. The state council and working committee meeting authorised to hold the conference with delegation of 1 each per thousand members. At the time of preparing this report 80% of the unions have carried out this stupendous tasks. Some of the unions from the remote districts are yet to complete those activities. Trend indicates that this 9th conference will take place with a growth of membership around 50% over the 8th Conference.

The Reception Committee has already set their office at the venue of the conference, the Kanchanjangha Stadium, Siliguri. The venue of the conference will be named as Chittabrata Majumder Nagar and Bikash Chowdhury Mancha to commemorate the contributions of these leaders. The office is fully vibrant with mobilisation of workers and organisers in hundreds to deposit their contributions, collecting the campaign materials like banners, festoons, flags, leaflet and chain flags to decorate the city and its suburbs. Seminars, Symposiums on the contemporary issues, Street corners, G.B. Meetings of the Unions are taking place in hundreds in different parts of districts covering hill and plane area. The city will be decorated with murals, paintings and sculptures highlighting the important events of the working class movement of the country and the state as well. The plantation workers of the Tea Estates, Bought-leaf factories and the students and youth community has come forward to bestow their hands of co-operation to make this major event of the working class of the state successful in all possible ways and means. The transport workers have decorated their vehicles plying not only in the city but also in the adjacent districts with the banners, posters, and stickers to carry the message of the conference to wider section of the people. The message of the conference against imperialism, capitalist globalisation, communalism, terrorism and disruptive activities and clarion call for establishing and extending the right of the working class as well social security of the informal sector workers.

CITU has firmly stood to support the LF Govt. of West Bengal for its earnest effort towards rapid industrialisation of the state to ensure decent jobs for the unemployed youth and economic development of the state in defiance of hard-core resistance from the ill motive opposition forces with congruence of ultra-left, extreme right and communal fundamentalists. The message of the conference is greeting and inspiring the left front government to go ahead with the peoples mandate from the last general election.

The open session will be presided over by Comrade Shyamal Chakraborty and addressed by Buddhadeb Bhattacharyya, Hon’ble Chief Minister of West Bengal, Md. Amin, the General Secretary, CITU besides the state and district CITU leaders. Expected gathering will be more than 1 lakh people. Even the present situation in the hill is being deteriorated by the in-fight of the factions of G.N.L.F. against and favour of promulgation of 6th Schedule, the rally will be a successful one as per firm belief and activities of the leaders of the Reception Committee.

Comrade M.K. Pandhe, President of CITU and legendary leader of the working class movement will inaugurate the conference in the evening of 1st March 2008. Important leaders of CITU and intellectuals will take part in different programmes organised by Reception Committee for a couple of days before and during the conference. The cultural activities will be following with all those programmes. These events will be taking place in different parts of the districts. There will be five commissions during the conference in which the topics will be contract workers, trade union and industrial laws, safety, occupational health, energy and environment, cadre policy and working class approach to culture, literacy, health and science. There will be two special discussion papers on industrialisation and informal sector workers. A commemorative publication on Comrade P. Ramamurthy will be released by CITU, West Bengal on the eve of the conference to distribute the same to all the 2000 delegates.

Right from CITU State Committee all the district committees, state based unions and local unions have taken earnest initiative and drive to campaign all over the state to popularise the issues to be dealt by the conference at this important juncture of state, national and international panorama. Around 1 million pamphlets carrying the call of the conference, 2 lakhs of posters and a few thousand banners, hoardings and placards are on display in all the corners of the state. This campaign, probably first time in the history has broken the barrier of CITU activities within cities, towns and industrial areas’ confinement. CITU planned with the cordial assistance and patronage of AIKS to organise rural non-agricultural workers under its banner. The campaign of the conference has started path breaking towards that historical decision of workers-peasants solidarity in a realistic way.