Workers bodies call for better wages

FROM A CORRESPONDENT

SHILLONG, Feb 14:  A social organisation in the State is using a 1912 political slogan coined in United States to demand better wages for workers in the unorganised sector.

The campaign started by Thma U Rangli (TUR) and 10 other unions reads. “We must have bread and roses too”. According to TUR the minimum daily wage in Meghalaya is one of the lowest in the country even as the organisation said that the workers deserve to be better paid to improve their living standard.

With Meghalaya going to polls on February 27, member of the TUR, Angela Rangad said the conglomerate of unions will submit a “working people’s charter” to all political parties.

The charter highlights various demands for which they are seeking commitments from those going into the 2018 electoral battle.

“We will be going to individual political parties to submit the charter,” she said adding that they will start with UDP working president, Bindo Matthew Lanong.

Rangad said that labourers should get their deserved wages and for labourers to be working in improved conditions of work.

The TUR member said that the ‘working people’s charter” is an open challenge to politicians if they dare to fulfill it.

“They will have to answer/clarify and to show their commitment to the charter within a period of 20 days,” Rangad said.

The TUR also opposed the Government’s proposed move to casualize and contractualise Grade IV and Grade III jobs.

“Bread and Roses” is a political slogan as well as the me of an associated poem and song. It origited from a speech given by Rose Schneiderman.

The poem was first published in The American Magazine in December 1911.

The phrase is commonly associated with the successful textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, during January–March 1912, now often referred to as the “Bread and Roses strike”.

The slogan pairing bread and roses, appealing for both fair wages and dignified conditions found resonce among the workers.