The Sponsoring Committee of Trade Unions, comprising major Central Trade Unions, namely, AITUC, CITU, HMS, AICCTU, AIUTUC, UTUC, TUCC and the  all India federations of employees in telecom, railways, defence, banks, insurance, airports, public sector units, central and state government offices and departments, etc., had called for the 12th general strike, highlighting a 6-point protest, including the relentless price rise, deepening and widening poverty, and the pauperisation of the common masses, rising unemployment and falling real wages in the face of increasing the GDP growth rate, increasing atrocities on labour and mass scale violation of labour laws, en mass  contractorisation and outsourcing in violation of existing laws, etc. When mass organisations of peasants, agricultural workers, women, students, youth, etc., expressed their solidarity by organising demonstrations and protests in the form of road-roko and rail-roko, the general strike got converted into people`s action throughout the country. 

In spite of Air Force personnel and fire services being deployed in large numbers at 21 airports to maintain safety, the protest by the Airports Authority of India employees disrupted flight operations and ended up in the cancellation of flights to Kolkata. The protestors also raised the issues of privatisation or leasing out of AAI airports, and demanded better pay and job security for those in the Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Nagpur airports.

Banking operations across the country were hit as bank employees` unions supported the strike to protest the merger of state-owned banks and the outsourcing of non-core activities. According to official sources, operations in about 40,000 branches were either fully or partially affected because about nine lakh employees went on strike.

The Sponsoring Committee of Trade Unions claimed that the massive response to the strike resulted in a complete bandh in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura and a partial bandh in Assam and Jharkhand. In Punjab and Haryana, the roadways workers` total strike paralysed normal traffic. In Karnataka, more than 50 per cent of public transport went off the roads. In other states as well, partial bandh was witnessed in several districts. According the unionists, the strike affected industrial areas, banks, insurance, coal and non-coal mining, power, steel, tea plantations, telecom, oil production, refining and marketing, road and air transport, defence production, central and state government offices, construction, etc. Moreover, workers in the unorganised sectors, anganwadi workers throughout the country and contractor workers in the central Public Sector Undertakings participated in the strike on a massive scale. 

AITUC General Secretary, Gurudas Das Gupta, claimed the strike was “the biggest ever general strike against the UPA government.” CITU national secretary, Tapan Sen, said that “the huge success of the strike is a clear manifestation of the people`s protest and anger against the anti-people neo-liberal economic policies pursued by the government.” UTUC General Secretary, Abany Roy, predicted that “this strike should be a warning bell for the government; if not, they should be ready to face prolonged agitations.” RA Mittal, National secretary of HMS, said that the strike is an expression of resentment of the masses against the anti-labour polices of the government.