Sub: Celebration of the Golden Jubilee of the 1968 Strike as “Day of Bravery and Sacrifice of Railwaymen”

As all of you are aware that, all the Central Government Employees had drawn one-day strike on 19th September, 1968 on many demands of the Central Government Employees, particularly “Need-based Minimum Wage, full neutralization of price rise in the form of Dearness Allowance etc.” AIRF fought this vociferously and thousands of our comrades, those who participated in this strike, were arrested/suspended/removed from service.

On this fateful strike we also lost our 09 comrades – Com. Paresh Sanyal (Bongaigaon, N.F. Railway), Com. Raman Acharjee (Mariani, N.F. Railway), Corn. Kishan Gopal, Bikaner (Northern Railway), Com. Lakshman Shah, Pathankot, Northern Railway), Com. Raj Bahadur, Pathankot, Northern Railway), Com. Debraj, Pathankot, Northern Railway), Com. Gurdeep Singh, Pathankot, Northern Railway), Com. Ghama, Pathankot, Northern Railway), Com. Arjun Singh (CPWD, New Delhi).

This year is the “Golden Jubilee Year of the 1968 Strike”, and it is our duty that, all branches of AIRF affiliates should organize programmes on this day to pay tributes to these martyrs of 1968 strike.

Here it is also pertinent to mention that, our sister organization NFIR, which had earlier committed to participate in this one-day strike, had not only went back, but also acted as an agent of the government and get our thousands of Railwaymen arrested and victimized.

This Working Committee Meeting of AIRF, held at New Delhi on 12-13 September, 2017, has decided for observance of the day in a befitting manner in all the important stations, Branch Headquarters to commemorate the memories of the martyrs and to take pledge to further the causes of the Trade Union Movement.