India: solidarity to striking Samsung workers in Chennai!

Since 9 September 1,500 Samsung workers at a huge plant in Chennai, India (representing 75 percent of the workforce) have been on strike. They are organised under the banner of the CITU (Centre of Indian Trade Unions), which is affiliated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM). Their core demand for union recognition is being fought bitterly by the bosses and state government. There have been several arrests, including of the national leader of the CITU. Still, the workers are holding their ground. 

The boom in demand for personal electronics in recent years has turned the tech sector into one of the most important pillars of India’s economy. 25 million people across the country are employed in electronics manufacturing, and India is now the world’s second-biggest manufacturer of mobile phones after China.

The huge growth and immense profits generated by this sector are based on the intense exploitation of the workforce, and the Samsung plant in Chennai (established in 2007) is no exception. Workers are squeezed for every last drop of profit. They are forced to work extra hours without pay, have had no salary increase despite inflation, and are compelled to toil in unsafe conditions.

The workers’ demands include:

1. The bosses register and recognise their trade union;

2. A wage increase from 25,000 to 36,000 rupees;

3. An eight-hour working day, with no unpaid overtime.

The Chennai plant is responsible for nearly a third of Samsung’s $12 billion annual revenue, giving the striking workers the power to effectively cripple this titan of the tech sector. To compensate for the loss of production from the strike, the Samsung administration has been relying on casualised scab labour in the form of contract workers and apprentices. 

State collusion

The DMK-led government in Tamil Nadu has tried to build up the state’s ‘business friendly’ reputation by making big concessions to multinational corporations like Samsung, who pay low taxes and are permitted to exploit Indian labourers with impunity. It is notable (and shameful) that the Communist Party of India (CPI), the ‘Communist Party of India (Marxist)’, and the ‘Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation’ (CPIML) have all supported the DMK alliance in Tamil Nadu as part of the INDIA alliance.

For its part, Samsung has been spooked by a 6,000-strong strike by workers back home in Korea. It finds itself staring down the barrel of an international labour dispute; indeed, Samsung workers in Seoul issued a statement of solidarity with the protesting workers in India.

Moreover, Samsung – which blamed the Korean strike on communist agitation and infiltration from the North – is dead-set against recognising a communist-affiliated trade union. Thus, a hyper-exploitative multinational and the local regime have a common interest in defeating this strike by any means necessary.

Lenin described the state as an instrument for the exploitation of the oppressed class, and this is being proved in practice in Chennai. Already, the state government has blocked the workers’ request for the registration of their trade union, forcing CITU to approach the Madras High Court.

The workers are being prevented by police from protesting in front of the plant. Instead, they have sought help from a sympathetic lawyer who has allowed them to assemble on his nearby private land, for which he was threatened by the authorities. 

Small shopkeepers nearby, who make their livelihoods selling tea and snacks to the Samsung workers, were also intimidated by the police to keep them from offering any solidarity or assistance. Workers have even received death threats from the police and Samsung bosses.

With the strike still rock solid in the face of this bullying, a severe crackdown has been unleashed. 910 were detained and later released without charge after they planned to hold a street protest. Then on the dawn of 9 October, 11 leading members of the strike were arrested at their homes, including the CITU’s General Secretary A Soundararajan and Kancheepuram district secretary Muthukumar. 

This outrageous escalation was accompanied by the police forcibly dismantling the striking workers’ tents!

Strengthen the strike!

Six rounds of official and unofficial talks have been held, from which union representatives have been excluded. In these, workers are reportedly locked in a dark room with the bosses and their goons. 

Following one such ‘negotiation’, involving three workers who did not even participate in the strike, the state government announced in the press that a settlement had been agreed. The CITU has denied this, vowing that the strike will continue.

This struggle should become a beacon for workers across the country / Image: G. Sundarrajan, Twitter

Aside from these divisive tactics of leaning on backward and unorganised layers of the workforce, the Samsung administration has offered distractions and crumbs, such as increasing the number of pickup buses for transporting workers to the plant and hinting at small wage increases. 

However, it has made recognising the CITU a red line. Samsung is refusing to negotiate with the union, and instead proposing an ‘internal union’, which they would control. This is an outrageous proposition, especially with leading members of the CITU still in custody.

This manoeuvre to crush and enslave the workers by cutting off their bargaining power has been treated with deserving contempt by the strikers, who have made union recognition the first step for any serious negotiation.

Already, the CITU has announced that it will organise a one-day solidarity strike on October 21 across the northern industrial region. This is a good step but it must be built upon. 

We call for workers all over Tamil Nadu and the whole of India to come out in solidarity, show their support for Samsung workers, and use their collective strength to free all detained workers and trade union comrades. 

This struggle should become a beacon for workers across the country, who are all treated as raw material for exploitation by the bosses. 

The trade union confederations should prepare for joint action, building towards a general strike with a programme of expropriating the big multinational corporations under workers’ control, and bringing down the rotten political establishment that serves the bosses’ interests at our expense.

Capitalism cannot ensure a life of dignity for the workers and oppressed. Ultimately only a socialist revolution can liberate human society from exploitation and oppression.

• Fulfil all the workers’ demands!
• Release the detainees!
• Expropriate the multinationals under workers’ democratic control!
• Down with capitalism, workers of the world: unite for socialist revolution!