Over 15 crore workers are set to go on a one-day nation-wide strike after central trade unions on Wednesday rejected the government’s conciliatory measure of a hike in minimum wages for unskilled labour.

Except for emergency services including health, railways and defence, all other worker unions including those of bank employees, transport workers, educators as well as industrial sectors both in public and private such as power, coal, textile, automobile, steel, oil will be on strike.

“In some States, it will be a bandh-like situation,” said a statement by central trade unions.

While some companies such as Coal India Ltd are banking on contract workers to continue operations, trade unions have claimed that the strike would bring production to a halt in a number of industries.

“All workers in the Gurgaon-Manesar automobile belt will participate in the strike,” Kuldeep Janghu, General Secretary, Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union, told BusinessLine adding that over 35 lakh workers in Haryana’s industrial areas will be on strike.

Industry chamber Assocham had last year pegged the financial impact of a similar strike on September 2, 2015 at ₹25,000 crore.

Noting a lack of progress on their 12 demands that include measures to contain price rise and unemployment, enforcement of labour laws, universal social security and minimum monthly wages of ₹18,000, trade unions said the strike would be larger in scale than last year’s.

“In over a year since the last strike, the government has not held a single meeting with the central trade unions on our 12-point charter of demands,” representatives of the 10 central trade unions said at a press conference.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday termed the increased minimum wage of ₹350 for unskilled non-agricultural workers as “historic” and said it is a step forward in labour reforms.

But, central trade unions said the measure was misleading and no such proposal was recommended by the Central Advisory Board of the Labour Ministry.

“The meeting was inconclusive and it did not make any recommendation to hike the minimum wage. Yet, the Finance Minister said the government has accepted the proposal of the Central Advisory Board,” said Tapan Sen, General Secretary, Centre of Indian Trade Unions. Except for the RSS-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), the call for a country-wide general strike on Friday was endorsed by 10 central unions including the Indian National Trade Union Congress, the Hind Mazdoor Sabha, the CITU, the All India Trade Union Congress, and SEWA.

The 10 central trade unions also claimed that though the BMS leadership had decided to boycott the strike based on an RSS directive, its State-level units would participate.

But BN Rai, President, BMS, countered that “Our members will not take part in the strike anywhere in the country,” adding that ithas no political compulsions.

The strike is unlikely to disrupt work at manufacturing units owned by most private sector companies.

The Essar Group said that there will be no impact because there is no workers union at any of its business units.

JSW Group also said that it expects no disruption of production at any of its facilities. There could some disruption in the banking sector but is likely to be limited to PSU banks.

In the auto segment, employees at Mahindra & Mahindra said they would not participate in the strike.

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