Jharkhand coal trade unions to go on strike
DHANBAD: Central trade unions and the management of Coal India Limited (CIL) are headed for a showdown on a nationwide coal industry strike from Thursday over the Central government’s commercial mining policy.
While the central trade unions have announced they would go on with the strike until the Centre withdraws the order for commercial mining, the CIL management has declared the strike call illegal and warned that a ‘no work no pay’ policy would be followed if the workers demonstrate.
All five trade unions of BJPaffiliated Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), INTUC, CITU, HMS and AITUC have called for the three–day nationwide strike from July 2 to 4.
Though a meeting between coal secretary Anil Jain and representative of all five trade unions was held in Delhi on Tuesday evening, it failed to break the deadlock.
“Over five lakh workers (3.75 lakh regular employees and 1.25 lakh outsourcing staff) will paralyze mining operations and dispatch in all nine coal units of CIL, including Jharkhand based-BCCL, CCL and ECL for the three-day strike to press the government for withdrawal of the commercial mining order,” said Rashtriya Colliery Mazdoor Sangh (major constituent of INTUC) general secretary, AK Jha, after a meeting of the trade union on Wednesday.
CIL chairman Pramod Agrawal on Wednesday warned workers through a notice saying that under the Industrial Dispute Act 1947, the coal sector comes under the essential utility services category.
“So, any strike in CIL units will be illegal and no work no pay policy will be followed”, said Agrawal.
All the five trade unions said they did not want to stage the strike amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
But, the Central government has compelled them for it as commercial mining would not only wipe out CIL but also lead to unemployment, they said.