The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Agreement puts an end to NLC contract labourers' 12-day strike

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Monday, Nov 27, 2006
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Tamil Nadu

Agreement puts an end to NLC contract labourers' 12-day strike

Special Correspondent

However, minimum bonus issue is shelved; AITUC gives dissenting note

MEDIATION: District Collector Gagandeep Singh Bedi and Superintendent of Police Sanjay Kumar participating in the mediatory talks to resolve the NLC contract labourers' issue at Neyveli held through Saturday/Sunday.

NEYVELI: The contract labourers of Neyveli Lignite Corporation resumed work on Sunday, bringing to end the 12-day-old strike, after an agreement was reached after the mediation of Cuddalore District Collector Gagandeep Singh Bedi.

The conciliation talks, held on the NLC premises, began at 8.30 p.m. on Saturday and ended at 4 a.m. on Sunday, in which Superintendent of Police Sanjay Kumar, Assistant Commissioner of Labour Karthikeyan, NLC Chief General Manager Mathialagan, Deputy General Manager Muthu, Chief Manager Mohan, and representatives of 19 trade unions and NLC Contract Owners' Association participated.

Though 13 trade union leaders signed the agreement, the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) handed over a dissenting note to the Collector.

The agreement, however, shelved the key issue of minimum bonus of 8.33 per cent to the contract labourers. The Collector told The Hindu that he had directed the Labour Department and the NLC management to take up the bonus issue expeditiously. Till the issue was resolved, the contractors should defer the recovery of the festival advance, but no time limit was fixed for arriving at a solution. The strike followed when the contractors proposed to recover the festival advance of Rs.1,500 given for Deepavali from the salary.

The Collector also said the principle of "no work, no pay" would be applied for the strike period. However, to compensate the monetary losses suffered by the 13,000 contract labourers, the contractors had agreed to give them employment during holidays and through over time to enable them to earn additional wages. Mr. Bedi had specifically told the NLC management and the contractors that they should not resort to any victimisation of the labourers, who participated in the strike.

Dissenting voice

AITUC leader P. Kuppuswamy said that in the dissenting note his union had stated that the agreement was not satisfactory because it did not address the predominant issue of wages for the strike period. There was also no guarantee that the advance payment would be treated as a bonus. The recovery of the advance payment was only deferred and not totally dropped, hence, the pact was not acceptable to the AITUC, he added.

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