Meeting organised by AIFAP on 19 September 2021
Report by KEC correspondent
A meeting was organised by AIFAP on 19 September 2021 to oppose the anti-worker, anti-people move to privatise the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) and public sector General Insurance Companies (GICs). The meeting was attended by nearly 500 participants and leaders from insurance, railways, electricity, steel, port and docks, telecom and other sector along with the activists of people’s organisations.
A meeting was organised by AIFAP on 19 September 2021 to oppose the anti-worker, anti-people move to privatise the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) and public sector General Insurance Companies (GICs). The meeting was attended by nearly 500 participants and leaders from insurance, railways, electricity, steel, port and docks, telecom and other sector along with the activists of people’s organisations.
Com Mathew welcomed the speakers, Com M Girija, Joint Secretary, All India Insurance Employees Association (AIIEA) and Com G Anand, General Secretary, General Insurance Employees Association South Zone (AIIEA).
He then welcomed the large number of national leaders from various all India federations and associations of different sectors who were attending the webinar apart from national and regional leaders of insurance sector, which included Com. Amanulla Khan, a stalwart national leader of Insurance workers:
Electricity sector:
Shri R. K. Trivedi, President of All India Federation of Power Diploma Engineers (AIFOPDE),
Com. Krushna Bhoyar, Joint General Secretary, All India Federation of Electricity Engineers (AIFEE),
Shri Dipak Kumar Saha, Joint Convenor, Coordination Committee of Electricity Employees, Engineers and Pensioners, Assam Electricity Board.
Railway sector:
Com. P. Sunil Kumar, Secretary General, All India Station Masters Association (AISMA),
Com. S. P. Singh, General Secretary, All India Guards Council (AIGC),
Com. Debashis Mitra, Zonal Secretary, South Eastern Railway,
Com. Ratnesh Kumar, Central Working Committee member,
Com. Tapas Chattraj, ex Central Office Bearer, All India Guards Council (AIGC),
Shri K. V. Ramesh, Senior Joint General Secretary, Indian Railways Technical Supervisors Association (IRTSA),
Com. Sanjay Pandhi, President, Indian Railway Loco Running Staff Organisation,
Shri K. Gopinath, General Secretary, Integrated Coach Factory (I.C.F.) Men’s Congress, Chennai,
Shri Alok Kumar Verma, Staff Council Member, Men’s Congress, Diesel Loco Works (MCDLW), Varanasi,
Shri Vijay Kumar, General Secretary and Shri Dayanand Rao, Zonal Secretary (AIRF), Rail Wheel Factory (RWF) Mazdoor Union, Bangalore
Shri P. S. Sesodia, Director Education and Vice President, Uttariya Rail Mazdoor Union (URMU),
Com. A. K. Srivastava, Zonal Secretary, All India Railway Employees Confederation (AIREC) Western Railway,
Com. Kameshwar Rao, Zonal President, South Central Railway All India Railway Employees Confederation (AIREC)
Com. S. K. Kulshreshtha, ex-Central Vice President (AIREC),
Com. Chetan Parvatia, Organising Secretary, Mumbai Division, All India Rail Track Maintainers Union (AIRTU).
Port & Docks:
Com. V. K. Murthy, Secretary All India Port and Dock Workers Federation
Com. V. V. Satyanarayana, Joint Secretary, Vishakhapatnam Port Employees Union (HMS)
Telecom Sector:
Com. K. Natarajan, Circle Secretary, Tamil Nadu, National Federation of Telecom Employees,
Steel Sector:
Com. Ajit Kumar Pradhan, General Secretary, Neelanchal Executives Association (NEA), Neelanchal Ispat Nigam Limited, Odisha
Other organisations:
Shri J.Raghava Rao,General Secretary,Committee of Public Sector Trade Unions,Hyderabad
Com. Anil Kumar, Organising Secretary, National Confederation of Officers Associations (NCOA),
Com. Jaimin Desai, General Secretary Surat Trade Union Council (STUC) and
Com. Nikunj Desai (STUC)
Com. Uday Chaudhary, Vice President, All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) – Maharashtra,
Com. Sanjeewani Jain, Vice President, Lok Raj Sangathan,
Com. Sheena Agarwal, Purogami Mahila Sangathan,
Com. Nirmala Pawar, Bharatiya Mahila Federation.
The speeches by Com. Anand and Com. Girija were very insightful and well appreciated. The videos of their speeches and the PPT of Com. Anand are at the end of this post.
The speeches were followed by lively and useful interventions by a number of participants. The need to build solidarity of workers of all sectors to oppose privatisation in all forms was stressed by many participants.
Highlights of the Speech by Com. G. Anand, General Secretary,
General Insurance Employees Association South Zone (AIIEA)
• The ruling class is firmly united behind the drive of privatizing public sector and working class and people need to forge a strong unity to defeat its plans. AIFAP is a very good platform to help forge such unity.
• The General Insurance sector which has been built brick by brick over the last many decades was dismantled by the Government of India in a matter of seconds. The General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Amendment Bill, 2021 was passed by Lok Sabha on 3rd August within 80 seconds and by Rajya Sabha on 11th August within 40 seconds! All this was done in spite of the demand by many parties to have a proper debate and consultation. Neither the General Insurance sector employees nor the people at large were consulted. Finally after the consent given by President of India the Bill became an Act on 15th August 2021.
• After independence from the British, the economic policies followed by the Nehru government and governments after that were as per the blue print laid out in the Bombay Plan which was formulated in 1944-45 by the big business houses of India. As mentioned in the Bombay Plan, all the basic industries related to infrastructure which needed huge investments and had long gestation periods before profit could be earned were built as public sector industries using people’s money.
• The Bombay Plan had indicated that after 15 years the private business houses would take over the public sector. However, due to political challenges the then Congress Party government could not enforce this in the decade of 1970.
• In the 1970’s and 80’s, world over the rate of profit of private enterprises was falling. Capitalist corporations all over the world as well as Indian capitalists then unanimously gave a slogan of liberalisation and privatisation. Their representatives like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan started saying that “It is not the business of governments to run business”.
• In India too, under the same pretext new economic policies of Globalization by Liberalisation and Privatization (LPG) were unleashed from 1991-92. ‘Disciplining’ labour, ‘free’ market and deregulation of markets, integration of local economy with the world economy, transferring public wealth into private hands, transforming agriculture into industry are some of the salient anti-people features of the LPG policies.
• When the Supreme Court gave a ruling that public sector land can’t be transferred to private hands, the Government of India bypassed it by saying that “now we are not selling government land, but only leasing it out.”
• The public sector GICs have played a big role in serving the general insurance needs of the country. Their privatisation will deprive tens of crores of Indians of the socially necessary insurance as private sector focuses only on urban areas and profitable business segments.
Highlights of the Speech by Com. M. Girija, Joint Secretary,
All India Insurance Employees Association (AIIEA)
• The insurance employees have been fighting to save the Life Insurance Corporation of India from privatization ever since the LPG policy was implemented by the Government of India.
• We should not be fooled by the false government propaganda that it is just planning to sale a small portion of LIC shares and that such a sale is not privatization. Experience shows that such small steps are always the beginning of privatization, she explained.
• LIC has been playing a very important role in spreading life insurance all over the country and also in nation building by investing in infrastructure like railways, bridges, dams, roads, drinking water supply system, sewage treatment systems etc.
• By 1950’s a large number of private life insurance companies declared bankruptcy instead of paying insurance claims and thus looted crores of people’s money.
• From 1950 onwards All India Insurance Employees Association started demanding the nationalisation of life insurance. Finally in 1956 all private insurance companies were nationalized and LIC India was formed on 1st September 1956.
• The insurance sector employees, agents and many others worked tirelessly to spread life insurance to every nook and corner of the country. As a result, they now have more than 40 crore policy holders with assets of more than 38 lakh crore rupees.
• Despite opposition from insurance sector employees finally the life insurance sector was thrown open to private companies in the year 2000. After 20 years, LIC of India still holds 75% of the market share. This shows the trust that people of India have on LIC of India. This trust of people it enjoys by having the best claim settlement record in the world.
• Unlike private life insurance companies, 95% of the profits LIC earns are distributed as dividends to policy holders and the rest is given back to the Government of India.
• Unlike the LIC, private insurance companies, instead of taking care of the policy holder by settling their genuine claims, try to find excuses to refuse the claims on flimsiest grounds.
• The real purpose of IPO needs to be exposed and opposed! Crores of people need to come on streets and oppose the privatization and liberalization policies.
She emphatically declared that working people must work towards changing the current capitalist political system in our country since that is the only sure way to protect the interests of our people.
Speech by Com. Anand:
Speech by Com. Girija:
PPT presented in the meeting:
GIBNA AMENDMENTS – ANTI -NATIONAL (1)