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Vajpayee pledges to protect workers

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee pledged on Tuesday that the country's drive for economic reform would not penalise workers.

"Even while implementing the new economic reforms, the worker's welfare is our priority," Vajpayee said in a May Day message.

India began an ambitious programme of economic reforms in 1991, aimed at transforming the world's second most populous country into an economic powerhouse.

But 10 years later, some politicians and labour leaders say the reforms have not improved the lot of the poor and the working class, a number of whom still live on less than a dollar a day.

Vajpayee's comments followed a May Day rally in Calcutta, capital of India's communist-ruled West Bengal, on Tuesday where some 2,000 demonstrators demanded that the federal government abandon its "anti-people" policies.

Supporters of the left-backed Centre of Indian Trade Unions, All India Trade Union Congress and United Trade Union Congress, shouted slogans against New Delhi's economic policies and said its reforms were increasing the divide between the rich and the poor.

"Reforms are for the rich. They are part of a conspiracy to rob the poor of whatever little they have," M K Pandhe, general secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions said. "These anti-people policies should be withdrawn immediately." "Reforms have taken away the rights of the workers," Pandhe said. "Retrenchment has been made easier than ever before with the laws completely tilted towards the employer."

Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha announced in his 2001-02 Budget a set of labour reforms granting flexibility to employers to lay off surplus staff.

He said firms employing up to 1,000 workers would no longer need government approval to discharge workers. Previously, only firms with fewer than 100 workers were allowed to lay off people without government consent.

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