People's Democracy

CPSTU Leadership Meets The PM

A DELEGATION of Committee of Public Sector Trade Unions (CPSTU) comprising M K Pandhe of CITU, H Mahadevan of AITUC, R A Mital of HMS, D Anantha Padmanabha of JAF, Bangalore and V Prabhakar of PSU TU Coordination Committee, Hyderabad met the prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh on March 12 and submitted a memorandum containing the following demands finalised by its national convention in Delhi on March 11:

• Tenure of the agreement not more than five years at any cost

• Improving the logical relativity between the pay and benefits of the workers and the executives which had turned widely adverse during last round of wage negotiations

• Annual increment system as percentage of basic pay to be calculated cumulatively every year

• Wage revision for the employees of sick PSUs and financial and policy support for their revival

• Wage rise for the contract workers in PSUs ensuring at least the minimum wage and benefits available to the permanent workers in respective PSUs

• Merger of DA equal to 50 per cent of the existing basic pay with effect from 1.4.2004

• Filling up of all vacancies in PSUs through fresh recruitment

• Payment of HRA to PSU employees of Bangalore and Hyderabad as per ‘A’ class cities.

Tapan Sen, MP and K Chandran Pillai, MP also accompanied the delegation

Prime minister assured the delegation to consider the above demands sympathetically. 

CPSTU called upon the public sector workers to prepare for countrywide united strike action in the event the government does not respond positively to the above demands. (INN)