People's Democracy

BSNLEU Hopes to Win Recognised Union Status

A LARGE number of employees of the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), the telecom major, took part in the membership verification poll to elect the recognised or representative union of non-executive employees in the organisation. The secret ballot for this purpose was held on February 1, 2011. The polling took place in more than 2000 polling booths all over India and was supervised by the BSNL or Labour Department officers.

The total number of eligible voters was about 2,30,000 and it is reported that about 95 per cent of them have voted.

Though 15 unions were contesting for the status of representative union, the main fight was between the BSNL Employees Union (BSNLEU) and the National Federation of Telecom Employees (NFTE).  The BSNLEU has won in the last three verification polls with more than 50 per cent of the polled votes and has been granted recognition as the representative union since 2005.

One of the participating unions, viz. the Federation of National Telecom Organisations (FNTO), approached the Ernakulam High Court against the verification, but could obtain no stay and the election was conducted as per the schedule.

The BSNL Employees Union expects to win again, with a good percentage of votes, in the background of a good wage revision and implementation of promotion policy for which it fought with determination. It has also organised sustained struggles for improvements in the BSNL and against its disinvestment and privatisation. The BSNLEU has conveyed its greetings and thanks to all the workers for the peaceful and disciplined election campaign and polling as also their support to the BSNLEU.