Strike is Successful or not?
How can it be assessed?
How will you judge whether the strike of 2nd September 2015 is successful or a flop show?
These are some questions which come to minds of not only layman but also employees and workers who are associated with different Trade Unions of various sectors.
In organised sector , call of strike is given by Top leaders of Trade Union Body of each organisation and once the call is given , it is the duty of each staff not to attend duty and this tradition has been maintained blindly since long.
In such position , it is but natural that 100% of workforce remain on strike and all organisation participating in strike remain closed. Some of works who are not associated with Trade Union giving strike call are also not in a position to attend the duty because it is also a tradition of member of each Trade Union to extend moral support to call of other Trade Union.
Leader of any Trade Union do not think it necessary to collect the views of their members before taking decision of strike . None of them even collect their views after strike to know whether they participated in strike with will or without will.
It is seen that some members of various Trade Unions abuse their leaders , condemn strike, reprimand violence and do not at all want happening of strike. In brief, they are on strike ,even if they are totally against strike. They helplessly take part in strike, willingly or unwillingly. They have no option to express their opposing views and neither their leaders want to give value of such opposition. They too are habituated to take credit for strike and its success.
This is the beauty of Organised Trade Union system prevalent in various banks, insurance companies, coal companies, steel companies , railways etc. I can rather add here that this is the beauty of Parliamentary democratic system of India . I Parliament too, all Members of Parliament associated with one party are supposed to act as one entity , thy all either say Yes Or No to any bill as per dictates of High Command of that Party.
This culture has been imbibed in DNA of Indians from the very days of schools and colleges. During school days too, a student who could abuse teacher or principal , who could cry loudly for any cause, who could burn office fixures and furnitures to get their demand fulfilled used to be collectively selected as Monitor of the class and President of School Union. And once a monitor is chosen, none of remaining students had courage to oppose any action of the Monitor and if anyone did it by mistake, he or she had to face dire consequences. None of school management or police or administration will come to rescue to such opposing student. It is therefore always considered safe to follow blindly the line dictated by leaders.
This is the culture learnt from school days. Police are not to protect real cause and to punish the culprit or wrong doers. They are to support who are mighty and crush who are weak. Similarly when a political party or extremist group call for a Band , none of shop or factory, none of office goers , none of vehicle plyers will have the courage to come out in market , open the doors of their shop or start their factory work. It is always safe to keep oneself confined in the closed doors of home if there is 'market band' or 'Bharat Band' or 'State level Band' call given by any group or party. Participation is not as per choice but in fear of violence ,arson and repercussion which usually takes place in such bund, strike or organised protest.
All types of strike or market band has more or less become ritual. In fact even management of organisations or government do not take such strike or band as seriously as they are expected from strikers . If a trade union of a bank gives a call for strike for any right or wrong cause, all members associated with the Unions think it wise to remain on strike. As such 100% participation in strike does not mean absolute success of strike or 100% support from all members.
It is therefore necessary now to invent such a mechanism which may within minutes collect the opinion of all members to know whether they all or at least majority of them support strike or not. We have seen how TV media collect votes on any issue using SMS technology. Similarly Government should also evolve technology based voting system on each call of strike or political bund to assess the views of participating members .
Otherwise strikers will strike as a custom to prove their presence in the same way as political parties organise various Bands and conduct many rallys near the election to prove that they are active and people supportive. In fact they sleep all the days before announcement of election. Similarly Trade Union leaders more or less remain in deep slumber or in hibernation till any major issue arises , many times concerning their survival or their self interest.
I therefore urge Bank staff too to express their views in their forum so that their leaders cannot become dictators and cannot misuse their unity and solidarity with trade unions. Unity is powerful but misuse of power will prove fatal in long run.Democracy will otherwise become a playing toy in the hands of leaders to keep members hypnotised .
Similarly all political parties should be mandatorily asked to collect views of their members once in six months or in a year to prove their loyalty to the party. If it does not happen , leaders of political party will continue to fool their voters once they win the election.
Media men who are supposed to assess the pulse of market and who are supposed to know the reality of all strikers publish the news or broadcast the news on TV as per message collected from leaders of Trade Unions or their political masters. Obviously media people are also victim of Sheep culture. Media is no more fourth pillar of democracy, as it is supposed to be. Media also plays in the hands of mighty leaders or muscle men or are guided by whims and fancies of promoters of TV Channel or print media.
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