EDITORIAL - BHARTIYA POST, JULY 2013
STRENGTHEN ORGANISATION
ENSURE DEMOCRATIC FUNCTIONING
BUILD UP CLASS-ORIENTED MILITANT ORGANISATION
It is an admitted fact
that our organisation, AIPEU Group ‘C’ and NFPE, has grown in its
strength and in terms of its movements and intervening capacity
throughout the country. But there is no room for complacency, given the
challenges before and the responsibilities fallen on us. We have to
strengthen our organisation further both quantitatively and
qualitatively.
In
building, running and strengthening a trade union organisation,
democratic functioning plays the role of a cornerstone. To put it
differently, the source of many of the ills of our organisation lies in
the absence of democratic functioning. Therefore the importance of
democratic functioning should be clearly understood by everyone of us.
Democratic functioning
in essence is to involve the mass of the workers in the decision making
process and their implementation. This requires a well knit and
functional system of regular contacts and participative communication
with the workers at grass root level on the one hand and collective
functioning of the leadership team at various tiers of the organization.
To
mention a few specifics of democratic functioning of a union are (a)
mode of discharging their responsibilities by the leadership (b)
attitude while dealing with the rank and file workers (c) relationship
between the leadership bodies of the union and general workers, (d) the
norms for working of the various committees, (e) collective functioning
in the process of decision making and implementation, (f) conducting
meeting of the committees and conferences of the union, (g) management
of the union fund and maintenance of books of accounts etc. and the last
but not least a functional mechanism of communicating with the mass of
the workers at grass root level and also hearing from them. Growing
bureaucratic practices in the functioning of the Union are creating
serious impediments in strengthening democratic functioning in the
Unions at some places. Individualistic way of working by some of the
leaders and activists promotes bureaucratism within the organisation. To
fight such as situation what is needed is to ensure the collective
functioning, to and fro communication amongst the leaders, cadres and
general workers.
Another vital area of
the democratic functioning is the meetings of the Executive committees
and office bearers of the union. In some places regular meetings of
these bodies are generally not taking place. Attendance is also much
below the required level and defaulting comrades are not dealt with
according to the norms of democratic discipline. Then again, the
meetings are not properly planned. No written report reviewing the
developments of the period between the two meetings and status of
implementation of the decisions of the previous meeting is placed before
the body concerned. Similar is the situation with regard to a written
statement of accounts, membership position etc. Holding the union
conferences regularly is a very important organizational requirement.
Unfortunately, there are instances of conferences not being held
regularly, in violation of constitutional provisions. Such failure is
bound to have serious organizational problems and weaknesses. For
efficient and effective functioning of an organisation the above
mentioned deficiencies are to be dealt with seriously.
Finally we must always
remember that without imparting trade union education and inculcating
trade union consciousness and class consciousness in the cadres and
workers the present malices in the unions narrated above cannot be
addressed. Whole package of neo-liberal reforms and the philosophy and
strategy supporting the same are meticulously designed for marginalizing
and weakening the trade union movement. Trade Union is the only social
force, which if properly organized can, pose a challenge against the
neo-liberal regime and mobilize the people around it. In fact, tackling
trade union movement and subordinating the same has always been the life
and death question for the capitalist system and in the era of
neo-liberal reforms they are much more focused on this goal of theirs
with all their ideological and organizational weaponaries at their
command. It is therefore, all the more imperative to ideologically
empower our leaders and cadres to powerfully counter the onslaughts of
the capitalist class.
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