Chennai: The powerful Dalit political party, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi(VCK) has come out strongly against the DMK government for passing the bill amending Factories Act, 1948 which would lead to the factory workers on duty for 12 hours instead of the present right hours.
The MDMK, AIADMK, CPI(M), CPI and the BJP had protested in the Assembly on Friday against the bill with the Congress staging a walkout.
VCK founder leader and Member of Parliament, Thol Thirumavalan in a statement on Saturday said, “The Tamil Nadu government has passed the factories amendment Bill, 2023 amid opposition from coalition partners. This is against the labour welfare polices that the DMK has been following for many years.”
He said that the basis of May Day was eight-hour work for workers and added that to take away the right to clauses of eight hours of work which was such a historic symbol of victory born of worker’s blood and to raise it to twelve hours, was an act against the working class.
The powerful Dalit leader said that this would lead to further exploitation of labour and will severly affect the credibility of the state government.
He called upon the Tamil Nadu government to immediately withdraw the Factories amendment bill immediately.
It may be recalled that the Tamil Nadu minister, for Labour Welfare and Skill Development, S.V. Ganeshan while piloting the bill has said that there was no change in the clauses of 8 hour work, weekly holiday and additional wages and added that the bill was to make industries friendly.
CITU state president Sounerrajan said that while western countries were reducing working hours to 6-7 hours a day and a five day work week, the Tamil Nadu government was doing a historical blunder.
–IANS
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