A powerful coalition of central trade unions has called a one-day nationwide general strike for Thursday, February 12, with organisers claiming as many as 30 crore workers will stay away from work to protest what they describe as “anti-worker, pro-corporate” policy changes introduced by the central government. The call was confirmed at a national workers’ convention and has been reproduced widely in the press.
“All India Trade Union Congress general secretary Amarjeet Kaur told rediff that ‘not less than 30 crore workers will participate’ in the strike”, According to PTI The unions say the scale of mobilisation will be broader than last year’s July 9 action when organisers estimated about 25 crore participants and will touch more districts this time.
The joint platform of ten central trade unions says the strike is targeted at a cluster of recent laws and policy moves that weaken labour protections and accelerate privatisation. Their immediate demands include the repeal of the four newly notified labour codes, withdrawal of the Draft Seed Bill and the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, scrapping of the so-called SHANTI Act (the proposed nuclear energy legislation), restoration of MGNREGA, and repeal of the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025.
Organisations Involved:
The strike call brings together a wide range of organisations: INTUC, AITUC, HMS, CITU, AIUTUC, TUCC, SEWA, AICCTU, LPF and UTUC are named in the joint forum’s statement. Farmers’ bodies most prominently the Samyukt Kisan Morcha and a number of agricultural workers’ unions have pledged support, turning the one-day action into a broader alliance of workers, small farmers and some mass organisations. Independent federations representing central government employees and several sectoral unions have also announced participation.
Not every labour group is on board: the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), one of India’s large unions, has publicly said it will not participate, describing the strike as politically motivated and noting its own engagement with the government on labour code implementation. BMS’s decision to sit out has been formally communicated on its website.
Organisers in the national capital and the industrial outskirts of Noida and Ghaziabad describe the mobilisation as intensive and imaginative from gate meetings, pamphlet campaigns and bike rallies to street theatre and cultural interventions aimed at explaining complex legal changes to ordinary workers. CITU and other unions have been running district-level programmes since December, with planned mass gatherings at sites such as Jantar Mantar and the Delhi Secretariat.
Union leaders say the strike will be felt across at least 600 districts more than the roughly 550 districts affected during one previous national action and have flagged particular intensity in states such as Odisha and Assam.
The government has defended the labour codes as modernising and streamlining a fragmented legal framework; official statements and ministry posts say the new framework does not strip workers of core rights and expands social security and formal coverage for gig and platform workers.
At the same time, unions argue that provisions on notice periods, thresholds and compliance mechanisms will dilute collective bargaining and make organising harder in practice.