Girni Kamagar

(full name, Girni Kamagar Lai Bavata— Red Flag Factory Worker), the oldest textile workers’ trade union in Bombay, formed in 1928 under the leadership of the Communists. In 1929 the colonial authorities arrested many figures in the Girni Kamagar. Repressive actions by the colonizers somewhat weakened the union, but even in the 1930’s it had assumed an important place in the organized workers’ movement. After India achieved independence (1947), the Girni Kamagar united in 1951 with the left-wing socialist trade union Mil Majdur Sabha into a single union, the Mil Mazdur Yuniyan (Union of Factory Workers), which in 1958 entered into the newly formed amalgamated union of textile workers of Bombay, the Bumbai Girni Kamagar Yuniyan (Bombay Union of Factory Workers). The latter has entered the All-India Trades Unions Congress.