Normal life and commerce sputtered to a halt in Kerala on the first few hours of the nationwide general strike called by trade unions to protest against the "anti-labour" policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Central government., on Monday, March 28, 2022.
The 48-hour shutdown commenced on Sunday at midnight and will end at the same time on Tuesday.
Essential services hit
The industrial action is particularly acute in Kerala, where pervasive left and Congress trade unions marshalled almost total resistance to the Centre's proposal to amend the labour laws.
The shutdown disrupted essential services, including transportation and banking. Nationalised banks will remain shut till Wednesday.
ATMs "run out" of cash
There are also unconfirmed reports that the trade unions had cautioned private banks against opening for business and that scores of ATMs across the State had run out of cash due to panic withdrawal by customers on the eve of the strike.
Food delivery halts
Online food ordering and delivery platforms, relied upon by a large segment of urban households, remained hit due to the closure of restaurants.
The ubiquitous motorcycle riders who ferry food to homes from hotels temporarily receded from public view.
Public transport hit
Taxis, autorickshaws and State and private-owned transport buses remained off the road. Shops stayed shuttered, and markets deserted.
In Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala State Road Transport Corporation )KSRTC) operated skeletal services with a police escort to shuttle persons alighting at the Railway terminal in Thampanoor to the Government Medical College Hospital and Regional Cancer Centre (RCC) for their medical appointments.
The strike also hit traditional sectors such as coir, fishing and agriculture. Farmworker's unions had declared a "Grameen Bandh" to express solidarity with the industrial action.
Tourism takes a beating
.Large scale cancellation of reservations and revocation of leisure travel plans disrupted the hospitality sector.
Backwater tourism is particularly hit, with scores of houseboats in Kollam and Alappuzha remaining at anchor.
Examination calendar disrupted
The strike also upended the timetable of academic year-end school and college examinations.
In Thiruvananthapuram, families randomly took to the road in cars and on two-wheelers, citing hospital consultation, weddings or funerals.
Workers turned back
In Kochi, trade unionists turned back employees who reported for work at cooking gas bottling plants and BPCL and FACT facilities. Similar scenes played out in other industrial and urban centres in the State.
Debate over strike rages on social media, television.
Notably, the strike also revealed the deep fissures in Kerala society over such crippling industrial action. Worryingly for many, the strike had occurred at a precarious juncture when the State struggled to emerge out of the penumbra of the economic recession and loss of livelihood caused by the two-year long COVID-19 pandemic.
Television channels broadcast images from other parts of the country where the national strike seemed to have had a scant impact.
Scores of videos and pictures of "normal life" in Bangalore and Mumbai offered a contrasting political commentary and went viral on social media.
BMS opposes strike
Bharathiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), the pro-BJP trade union, stayed away from the strike. It slammed the opposition unions for resisting the Centre's bid to amend the byzantine labour laws that stymied competitiveness and rendered hiring complicated.
CITU, INTUC back it
Earlier, CITU leader Anathalavattom Anandan justified the strike. He demanded the Centre backtrack from the proposed labour law amendment, which he claimed was anti-worker and pro-corporate.
Mr. Anandan also railed against privatisation, paltry MNREGA wages, the contract work culture low on employee welfare, and the Centre's accelerated disinvestment drive by implementing the contentious national monetisation pipeline (NMP) policy in the public sector.
Mr. Anandan claimed the strike would bring coal, steel, oil, rail, telecom, power, public transport, insurance and defence production sectors to a standstill.
The INTUC, AITUC, HMS, AIUTUC, TUCC, SEWA, AICCTU, LPF and UTUC have backed the strike. He said at least 25 crore workers from the disorganised sector, including daily wage earners and unskilled manual labourers, had thrown their weight behind the strike.
Trade unionists marked the commencement of the strike by organising a torchlight process in urban centres across Kerala on Sunday midnight.
