Labour Day: Chicago martyrs remembered

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May 1

CTU Punjab and Dehati Mazdoor Sabha, Jalandhar district units, held a convention at the Garha Jalandhar office to pay homage to the martyrs of the eight-hour work struggle of the working class. CTU district president Ram Kishan hoisted the flag. Addressing the gathering, Prof Tejinder Virli said in 1886, in Chicago, hundreds of people shed their blood in the ongoing struggle for an eight-hour work day.

The leaders of this movement were sentenced to life imprisonment. Virli said this martyrdom for human rights showed its final colour and after three years in 1889, the decision was taken by the ‘International Socialist Conference’ that only eight hours of work will be taken from the workers. Eight hours of work was finally fixed in America and May 1 was declared as ‘International Labour Day’.

Virli said the Modi government at the Centre had betrayed the working class by notifying the eight-hour daily wage to 12 hours and has given corporate houses and capitalists the freedom to loot the hapless. By breaking the 44 Labour Laws and creating four codes, the workers have been deprived of their rights.

Dehati Mazdoor Sabha state joint secretary Baldev Singh Nurpuri said the media and IT cells had been used to cover up the gross failures of the Modi-Shah government for 10 years. He said through ED, CBI and Income Tax Department, corrupt politicians were being made to join the BJP by intimidation. Ram Kishan said the Modi government at the Centre wants to take away the rights of the hardworking people by abolishing the Constitution of the country.

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