Chennai, Dec 27: Downsizing of the staff, retrenchment, withdrawal of economic benefits like bonus to various state government employees would come up for discussions at the four-day conference of All-India State Government Employees` Federation to begin here today. Nearly 2,000 delegates from all over the country and a few fraternal delegates from Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal would attend the 11th national conference, Sukomal Sen, general secretary of the federation.

The Central government, he said, had been "pressurising" state governments to follow its footsteps. Whenever employees and workers took to the path of struggle against these "anti-worker policies", the central and some of the state governments come down heavily to suppress the movement, he said adding Esma was being "rampantly" used. If the second National Labour Commission`s report was accepted by the central government, it would virtually deprive the workers of their right to "unionise and fight", he alleged adding the conference would discuss this "dangerous" situation and adopt appropriate course of action to resist this "onslaught". Bureau Report