Onions and Unions have this common characteristic of bringing tears to one's eyes when dealt with. But while in the case of onions the tears are worth the trouble, the latter can never justify the hardship that they routinely pose to the citizenry. Just a few weeks back we had a notion that these days the nuisance value of the unions is progressively declining but after the Farmers' taking entire north India to its knees, we have to reconcile to the reality that the nuisance value of Unions resorting to strikes and taking the lives of the citizens to ransom still hold good. The strike by the PDD employees and engineers, a couple of days back is a telling example of that as they have turned the entire Jammu into a ghost territory. It is a sad pointer to the growing irrelevance of Administration's acumen, if any, to deal with this scourge called unionism or employees' hegemony.
None can grudge the sweat and blood spilt by the toiling class to earn even a single meal. Nor can anyone deny their right to organize themselves to get a fair deal or for better working conditions. But the moot point is that can those who are pushing the life of people to the medieval age of darkness by going on pen-down/tool-down strike truly be called the toiling class? Nothing can be more perverse than that. Who are the habitual strikers of the modern world? Bankers, Government employees and of course now the PDD employees. If these are deemed the working-class ordained by Karl Marx, then someone down the generations has obviously tampered with the original manuscript.
In the past, feudal lords and industry captains made slaves out of farmers and labourers who were paid meagre wages after endless hours of work in exacting working conditions. Unionism was meant to fight this kind of exploitation. Can these ‘provocations' apply to the current crop of strikers? No!
Barring a section among them, daily wagers or foot soldiers, who indeed were exploited for years by none else than the state, its politicians and bureaucracy, all the engineering staff are the best positioned amongst all the classes of workers rather masses. Neither has their pay packets measly nor are the privileges and working conditions stifling to warrant frequent strolls down the streets. And they possess something that the rest of the countrymen can't dream of: Job security and through that, life security with the skimmed cream as ‘extras.'
The traditional politicians of J&K had made the power development department a mess and never allowed it to become self-reliant in the matter of sufficient power generation despite having abundant potential in J&K's hydro-power. Instead, they remained on overtime jobs for promoting the corruption within it and thus to reap the fruits in terms of commissions in works and open bids for transfers.
The feedback revealed an unreasonable and flimsy reason for the current strike. Among a few other demands, the PDD work workforce has the issue of procedural disbursement of their salaries which is being paid by the respective power corporations of Kashmir and Jammu. They instead want the earlier practice of salary disbursement through government treasury, which they think would be more assuring to feel like in government job than on the roll of corporations. Funny of course! Isn't it being done at such a huge cost of sufferings perpetrated on the people by pushing them to severe hardship and darkness? Ponder over it, please!
