Uniting Labourers

MAY Day was celebrated throughout the nation Tuesday, the 1st of May, with rallies, marches and speeches by political and labour union leaders. Protecting the rights of workers was much emphasised in their speeches while addressing functions organised by various labour unions to mark the 112th International May Day. Protection and promotion of the rights and interests of the labourers was also the celebratory theme of the Nepal Trade Union Congress (NTUC)-organised function that Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala addressed. There were other functions too organised by DECONT and GEFONT trade unions, addressed by other top leaders of Nepali Congress, UML and other political parties. The common strand in the leaders’ pronouncements was that trade unions had an important role to play in mobilising labour force, consolidating multi-party democracy, ensuring industrial development, promoting dialogue between labour unions and industrialists and so on.

Indeed, trade unions have a great responsibility in protecting the interests of the labour force. As a vital component of the pluralistic society, they have to do their bit in promoting a democratic culture too. A cursory look at the labour union movement of Nepal, however, is enough to understand that the labour union movement in the country is not advancing in the way that it should. Impeding its growth is the pernicious divisiveness. Different labour unions toeing different political lines jostle with each other in one-upmanship. It is unfathomable why unions who profess to work for the same interests go their own ways in programmes and approaches. Obviously, this cannot be considered healthy for the growth of a unified labour union movement. A unified labour union movement is essential to better protect labourers’ rights. But talking about collective bargaining where in lies part of the rationale of a labour union movement, it must be stressed that dialogue has to be the preferred mode of bargaining between labour unions and industrialists. The adverse impact that the recent tussle, as yet unresolved, between hoteliers and hotel employees had on the country’s top forex earner tourism, points all the more to the need for promoting a "dialogue culture" when labour dispute arises. To sum up, hopefully this year’s May Day celebrations helped advance things on two fronts: a unified labour movement and a "dialogue culture".

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A LAND of plenty, Nepal ranks second in the world in water resources. Apart from bountiful resources, it has the most diverse geophysical setting. This provides immense prospects of growing a wide variety of fruits and crops. Given the fact that the infrastructure network in the country is still very dismal, the prospects of commercial production of crops and fruits have been narrowed. There have been cases when farmers in the hills have had to walk for long tedious hours before being able to market their products. The story about the rotting apples in Mustang is repeated every year. Farmers there were encouraged to produce apples without prior thought as to how they would be marketed in the absence of roads linking the district. It is quite evident that the building of physical infrastructure is a step towards enhancing the overall development of any district. Without physical infrastructure, nothing moves.

In this backdrop, the decision of Britain, a long time development partner of Nepal, to provide a grant assistance of roughly 3.4 billion rupees for the Rural Access Programme comes as heartening news. The programme will be focused in the Eastern Development Region and the adjoining districts of Bhojpur, Khotang and Shankhuwasaba. Likewise the programme will also be launched in the Mid and Far Western development regions and Achham, Dailekh and Doti. The RAP bears a lot of significance pertaining to its modest objective. According to the Finance Ministry, the RAP aims at improving poor people’s access to the goods, markets and services and thereby contributing to the goal of more secure and sustainable rural livelihoods for the poor and disadvantaged in the hill areas of Nepal. The six-year Rural Access Programme will kick off this year and will end in February 2007. As the programme under its first phase will focus on the construction of feeder and district roads in the said far-flung districts of the country, there will be a spur of economic activities in these districts upon the completion of the project. The other positive part of the agreement is that the HMG will also contribute 20 per cent of the costs for the feeder roads. This would be an inspirational factor to accomplish the project in time. The government must cash in on the opportunity of standing out to a high degree of performance so that its development partnership with Britain will go a long way.