NOT£S 67 raised for ensuring bonus for all, provided the Government is prepared to change its wrong economic policies and to go in for raising resources from those parasitical sections of the community; such as the big monopoly houses, foreign capital and landlords, who have amassed enormous wealth at the expense of the masses of poor workers, peasants and employees. Adequate resources can also be raised if the Government is prepared to get hold of all the black money resulting from large-scale tax evasion and avoidance amounting to about Rs 10,000-15,000 crores. Though it has taken two and a half decades of determined struggle, the working classes and the employees all over the country have come out victorious in forcing the Government and private industrialists to accept the bonus as a legitimate part of wages rather than an ex-gratia payment. This concession is, by no means, based on the need-based minimum wage as recommended by the 15th Labour Conference. It is the deep anxiety to have a living wage that motivates the working classes to continue their struggle against the anti-labour and undemocratic policies of the Government. It is deplorable that even the limited concessions contained in the Bonus Act are not made available to all catagories of workers and employees. The arguments about the lack of resources can never convince the exploited masses of the people so long as the ruling class indulges in all kinds of luxuries towards the satisfaction of which a lot of domestic resources and foreign exchange are diverted. Apart from this total lack of responsibility on the part of the ruling classes and the top echelons of the bureaucracy and management, the economic and fiscal policies of the Government have only succeeded in imposing ever increasing burdens on the workers and employees by way of rising prices and unbearable tax burdens. So long as this policy of emaciating the working class to fatten the property owners like the landlords and big business continues, the working class will increase the tempo of their struggle with determination and unity to secure a minimum bonus for all in the short-run, and a need-based minimum wage in the near future. There can be no illusion either about the class bias of the Government nor about the exploitative character of the ruling classes. Hence the key to greater success lies in more determined struggles and the unity of the working class. OUR RESEARCH SECTION