Noida: Various civil rights organizations and trade unions have come forward to express solidarity with labor activists facing police action in Noida over the April 13 protest in the city seeking a hike in minimum wages.The protest turned violent, leading to arson and large-scale vandalism.The national committee of Indian Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) on Tuesday expressed shock over Noida police being allowed to access mobile phones of Satyam Verma, Aditya Anand and Himanshu Thakur. Calling the move an attack on the constitutional right of laborers to unionise, IFTU national general secretary T Sriniwas said the right to organize workers, to make them conscious of their legal rights, and to struggle for demands are all guaranteed by the Constitution of India.“The Noida police has tried to paint any attempts to organize workers as equivalent to inciting violence. In fact, it is a move to paint any attempt to organize workers as a criminal act,” he said.IFTU said whether the state govt’s announcements under the Minimum Wages Act were being violated by companies and factory owners or not was settled by the license cancellation and blacklisting of contractors after the protest, disbursal of dues they held back, and the 21% hike govt made in minimum wages.“IFTU has long demanded a common minimum wage for Delhi-NCR to stop exploitation of the workforce by companies moving from one area to another to avoid the higher minimum wage fought for and won by workers in Delhi in the past,” Sriniwas said.IFTU appealed to the higher judiciary to protect workers’ constitutional right to organize and release arrested workers and activists.Meanwhile, various rights groups congregated at the Press Club in Delhi under the banner of Satyam Varma Rihai Manch and sought his release along with the co-accused.“Satyam has been arrested because police and the administration want to shut down an important voice that is critical of the present regime by putting him behind bars. It is because he regularly writes on people’s issues and problems and is a vocal critic of govt policies and because he is associated with several institutions and writes for Mazdoor Bigul that he has been arrested,” Satyam Rihai Manch Kavita Krishnapallavi said.
