May Day Celebrations: Hyundai, Scholl and Asian Paints at Sriperumbudur

Posted: May 3, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: tnlabour.in | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

First posted on Thozhilalar Koodam (Workers’ Space)

Early on the morning of May Day, 2013, workers of Hyundai, Scholl, and Asian Paints hoisted flags and commemorated the workers who had struggled in the past to safeguard the rights of workers today. The workers called for greater solidarity between workers of different factories and pledged to continue their struggles for better working conditions and rights at the work place.

This is 90th year after the first may day celebrations in India were held in Madras on 1 May, 1923.

Hyundai Motor India Ltd.

Hyundai Motor India Ltd. workers assembled outside the main factory gate at the Sriperumbudur plant to hoist flags this May Day.

The two rival unions at Hyundai,Hyundai Motor India Employees Union (HMIEU) and United Union of Hyundai Employees (UUHE), hoisted separate flags.

The HMIEU flag is to the right of the main gate along with the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) flag. The HMIEU workers, some employees and some dismissed employees, assembled around the flag and hoisted the flag while shouting slogans. The president of HMIEU, Dinakaran presided over the function. R. Sridhar, general secretary of HMIEU, who was dismissed in 2008, was also present.  Sanmina employees union president,  Mani came in solidarity.  S.Kannan, state committee member of  CITU was present and addressed the gathering along with E. Muthukumar, Kanchipuram District Secretary of CITU. Read the rest of this entry »

First May Day celebrations in India – Excerpts from The Making of the Madras Working Class

Posted: April 30, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: tnlabour.in | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

First Posted on Thozhilalar Koodam (Workers’ Space)

The following are excerpts from Dilip Veeraraghavan’s book, The Making of the Madras Working Class on the first ever May Day celebrations in India, held in 1923 at Madras.

“Another development during this period [1922-33] was the appearance of left radicalism represented by Singaravelu [Chettiar] who had been championing the cause of  labour at the time of  the 1921 strike, taking part in the public meeting and demonstrations and writing articles in support of labour. His polemics with Slater were significant. However, he did not hold an office in any of the unions which had sprung up then. It was solely at his initiative that Madras achieved the distinction of having celebrated the first ever May Day in India on May 1, 1923. On the same day, he launched the Labour-Kisan Party of Hindustan as a distinct political party of labour and for labour, with a ‘politico-economic policy for labour, free from mere reformism or opportunism, which characterised all other parties in the country.’ His move however had a hostile reception from the then established labour leaders, like Chakkarai Chettiar, Iyer Thiru Vi. Ka. [V. Kalyanasundara Mudaliar] and from Sriramulu Naidu, who had been with Singaravelu in the beginning, but turned hostile as he considered the Labour-Kisan Party a rival to the Congress. A mass meeting of the workers of Madras was convened to repudiate all connection with the Labour-Kisan party. Swadharma with all its international coverage took him to task for trying to plant exotic ideas and theories in India and held that only the AITUC [All India Trade Union Congress] had the right to represent the workers of India. The nationalist trade union leaders considered the Labour-Kisan Party as distractive and disruptive and wanted it to be ‘nipped in the bud.’ 

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