Reading into 25,000 crore loss: all India trade union strike

Abstract

The 2 September strike called by almost all the major central trade unions garnered the usual, frenzied media attention. It was touted as one of the biggest ever in the country (The Hindu Business Line 2015). The strike protested against the changes in labour policies being ushered in by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.[i] All leading newspapers, websites and news blogs covered the strike, some even provided their readers with sort of an “all you need to know about the bandh” cheat sheet, a day before. While the strike raised several issues, the headlines that dominated the reporting on the day after the bandh were around the loss of Rs 25,000 crore to the nation’s economy.