The Hindu : Front Page : BHEL employees resume work

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Saturday, Jul 28, 2007
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BHEL employees resume work

Staff Reporter

TIRUCHI: Over 1,300 workers of Labour Contract Society at the BHEL Complex here reported for work on Friday, ending their 18-day strike seeking pay increase and service regularisation.

They resumed work after the BHEL management agreed to enhance daily remuneration from Rs. 120 to Rs. 145 and extend overtime benefit for 16 hours every month. With this, each worker could earn a monthly pay close to Rs. 5,000 as against Rs. 3,600 earlier, BHEL sources said.

The agreement was reached on Thursday during the Executive Director of BHEL, R.N. Misra’s talks held with Tiruverumbur MLA K.N. Sekaran, Thottiyam MLA M. Rajasekaran and representatives of five unions. The BHEL management will, however, not consider the regularisation issue. The Collector, Ashish Vachhani, spoke to the management twice for ensuring a smooth solution. The settlement was preceded by several rounds of talks that the MLAs held separately with the union representatives and the Collector. Within a few days of the strike, the management agreed to increase the daily remuneration by nine rupees and subsequently by Rs. 14, following the intervention of the Deputy Commissioner of Labour. As the workers did not relent, the issue was settled with a Rs. 25 raise.

The agreement was clinched before the impending visit of the Chief Minister, M. Karunanidhi, and the Union Heavy Industries Minister, Santosh Mohan Deb, to the BHEL Complex to inaugurate its expansion project.

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