Daijiworld Media Network - Udupi

Udupi, Feb 28: Construction Workers Federation of India (CWFI) and Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), Udupi wing, staged ‘Lok Sabha member’s office chalo’ protest with an aim to save Building and Other Construction Workers (BOCW) Act-1996 and hence safeguard construction workers life at Rajathadri, Manipal here on Thursday, February 28.

Balakrishna Shetty, vice president, CITU said, “The current government is going to cancel 44 labour laws. Instead of that, they formed four ‘Labour codes’ namely ‘Code on wage’, ‘Code on Industrial Relations’, ‘Code on Social security and welfare’, ‘Code on Occupational safety health and working condition'. As the nine codes will be merged in one act, the unorganised labourers who are getting benefits will end up losing benefits and their identity cards will be cancelled.”

The working union demands government to retain BOCW and Cess Act 1996 and hence save construction welfare boards, construction workers and their families.

As part the movement, the CWFI gave a call to conduct protest from February 21 to March 6 along with signature campaigns and public meetings to draw the attention of Union government. The labour union members will present their plea before the government through Member of Parliaments. The laws need to be people friendly and easy to adopt. In case, the 1996 labour act gets passed, workers will face many complications. "So we are demanding to save earlier 1996 act for the safeguarding the interest of workers."

U Das Bhandary, Suresh Kallagara, Jagadish Achar, Shekhar Bangera, Dayanand Kotian, Ganesh Nayak and others were present.