Nepal Workers: Caught Between a Gun and a Gun

by Tula Connell, Mar 21, 2006

Tim Ryan, who’s our AFL-CIO Solidarity Center program director for Asia and Europe, marched this past weekend with workers in Katmandu, Nepal, to protest against legislation that will leave tens of thousands of workers at the mercy of their employers with no social safety net.

Here’s Tim’s report.

“We’re between a gun and a gun,” Laxman Basnet, president of the Nepali Trade Union Congress (NTUC), told me as we marched with several thousand workers in Katmandu, Nepal on Saturday, March 18, against a new, draconian labor ordinance unilaterally promulgated by the country’s King. Coordinated demonstrations took place in six other urban centers throughout the country.

One gun is held to the heads of workers by King Gyanendra, who dissolved Nepal’s constitutional government in February 2005 and arrested dozens of trade union leaders. The other is held by the Maoists, a South Asian “Sendero Luminoso” who now after a 10-year insurgency control 60 to 70 percent of the countryside, blockaded all the major roads of the country last week (driving up food prices for workers) and killed at least 60 NTUC teacher union members over the past few years.

Democratic unions, including the NTUC, the General Federation of Nepali Trade Unions (GEFONT), aligned with the Nepali Marxist-Leninist Party, and the Democratic Confederation of Nepali Trade Unions (DECONT) who represent largely informal sector workers, are all working together to pressure the government to keep the king from imposing terrible labor legislation which will “informalize” workers, allow employers to “hire and fire” at will, and provide no social safety net for victimized workers.

It didn’t have to be this way. Ironically, in a move unique in any of the countries in South Asia, after two years of good faith bargaining between the major unions and the employers’ representatives, by January 2005 the employers and unions had come to an agreement about more “labor flexibility” to satisfy employers which would be compensated by the establishment of a social safety net that included unemployment insurance, expanded pensions and other worker safeguards. This breakthrough was destroyed by the king literally a month later, when he decided to dissolve the democratically-elected civilian government and take power in a “palace coup” (pun intended).

So the date for all friends of Nepal and democracy to watch is April 8. As of this writing, talks are taking place between the democratic forces and the Maoists in Delhi to try to convince the Maoists to lay down their arms and become part of a non-violent democratic process. The labor demonstration on March 18 is a “warm-up” for protests on April 8, which will bring tens of thousands of workers, students, and political party activists into the streets of Nepal’s cities and towns. Their demand will be for the king to step aside, restore parliamentary democracy, and protection of human and labor rights in the country.

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