Building a Wider
Horizon With Labour
It was a unique experience for the political leaders and media persons who had assembled there: here was CPI State secretary Kanam Rajendran speaking in his inimitable Malayalam only to be translated into Hindi at a meeting in a hall in the heart of the town. And the issues he took up too appeared to be strange for an average Malayali: minimum wages for workers; exploitation by contractors; lack of proper living space; and proper service conditions, including health and shelter. This was the first State conference of the Kerala Migrant Workers' Union affiliated to the AITUC. And with representatives from Kashmir, Punjab, Bihar, Manipur, Meghalaya, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka, the crowd was a microcosm of the nation.
