Fight Back News Service is circulating the following Jan. 8 statement from the World Federation of Trade Unions.

The World Federation of Trade Unions, which represents more than 97 million workers from 130 countries in the 5 continents, stands firmly and militantly on the side of the Indian working class and expresses its internationalist solidarity with All India general strike on January 8th, 2020.

All-India general strike constitutes the escalation of workers’ and trade unions’ dynamic struggles against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and overall the anti-labour policy of Prime Minister Modi and the BJP. Massive mobilizations in a political environment of intimidation, bans and fierce repression, even in the BJP-ruled states, underlines the popular rejection of the anti-democratic and divisive act.

The international class-oriented trade union movement welcomes the pioneering role played by the WFTU affiliates and the massive response of tens of thousands of workers who participated in the protests, rallies, and demonstrations that were organized and took place all over the country during the past year. We condemn the government’s nationalist strategy of dividing and fragmenting the working class on an ethnic and religious basis which is not only reactionary, unacceptable and harps back to colonialist tactics but is also unconstitutional.

The WFTU strongly and emphatically condemns the communal polarization that the Modi government is trying to create in order to disorient the working class from austerity policies, aiming at the same time to the elimination of the class unity and future workers’ struggles. We denounce the outrageous violation of the workers’ protest right and the brutal repression against peaceful demonstrations that have so far caused hundreds of injuries and at least 3 assassinations of protesters by police bullets.

The WFTU calls upon the popular strata and workers from every region and sector of India to send a thunderous and decisive message of rejection of the CAA and of the whole neo-liberal policies which are against workers’ achievements and popular rights.

The Secretariat

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