Monday, August 22 2005 17:29 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Dhanbad: The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) today (Aug 22, 2005) warned that the Central Government would not enjoy support of the Left Front for long in the name of secularism provided it did not change its policy of exploiting the working class.

"The trade unions would not tolerate exploitation of the workers at any cost", the CITU National President M.K. Pandhe who was in Dhanbad to mobilise support for the nationwide hartal (agitation) scheduled on September 29, told sources.

"The left oriented trade unions want to give clear message to the Government through proposed hartal that anti-labour policy would not be accepted", he said.

Holding Union Government responsible for the sickness of coal industry the CITU leader said "Its wrong industrial policy has badly affected the condition of public sector units".

"Last year around 23 million tonnes of coal was imported from Australia and other countries whereas several mines in the country were closed owing to financial crisis", Pandhe said.

"The Union Government had stopped central aid to the coal industries and at the same time it had reduced tax on importing coal", he said.

The CITU leader said that the globalisation, privatisation and liberalisation policy of the Government in the name of disinvestment and selling out public sector unit to private party at a cheaper rate was harmful for the workers.