United Trade Union Congress

UTUC
United Trade Union Congress
Founded1949
HeadquartersKolkata, India
Location
Members
383,946 (2002)
Key people
Ashok Ghosh, general secretary

United Trade Union Congress is a central trade union organisation in India. UTUC is politically tied to Revolutionary Socialist Party. Ashok Ghosh is the general secretary of UTUC.[1] According to provisional statistics from the Ministry of Labour, UTUC had a membership of 383,946 in 2002.[2]

UTUC was founded at an All India Labour Conference in Calcutta, 1 May 1949. The founding president was professor K.T. Shah, a member of the Constituent Assembly from Bombay, and the founding general secretary was Mrinal Kanti Bose, a former AITUC president from Bengal. At the time of its foundation, Bose claimed that the organisation consisted of 236 unions with a combined membership of 347,428.[3]

Initially, UTUC profiled itself as an independent trade union centre, organising members of different leftwing factions. In 1953 the Deputy Labour Minister of India, Abid Ali, estimated the UTUC membership at 384 962. At the time UTUC had 332 affiliated unions.[4]

Thakur Mukand Singh Vaidh of Deoband Village, Jadoda Jutt, Uttar Pradesh served as a president of UTUC UP until April 1981.[citation needed]

UTUC is affiliated to the World Federation of Trade Unions.[5]

  1. ^ Welcome to labourfile- a bimonthly journal on indian labour and economic affairs
  2. ^ "Aggregate data on membership of CTUOs 1989 and 2002 (Provisional)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 April 2011. Retrieved 9 April 2011.
  3. ^ Park, Richard L. "Labor and Politics in India", in Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 18, No. 16 (10 August 1949), pp. 181-187.
  4. ^ Ornati, Oscar. "Indian Trade Unions Since Independence", in Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 23, No. 8 (August 1954), pp. 113–122.
  5. ^ World Federation of Trade Unions. Indian Trade Union Delegation visits Venezuelan Embassy in New Delhi