Meeting with Communications Minister on Casual & Contract Workers issues on 9th September 2011.

 

Along with Com. Basudeb Acharya, Member of Parliament and leader of CPI (M) in Lok Sabha, Comrades V.A.N.Namboodiri, President BSNLEU & BSNLCCWF and P.Abhimanyu, General Secretary BSNLEU, met Shri Kapil Sibal to-day, 9th September 2011 and discussed the various long pending issues of the casual and contract workers in BSNL. A detailed note on the issues of regularization of casual labour, grant of TSM status to eligible officials, strict implementation of minimum wage and the social security measures like ESI and EPF was submitted and discussed. (copy enclosed).

  1. Regularisation of Casual labour:

The union pointed out that while  the Government had agreed to regularize all the eligible left out casual labours at the time of corporatisation, still there are about 4000 more to be regularized out of which about 2270 are in W.Bengal alone. The Management is refusing to regularise them on the plea of the Supreme Court judgment in Umadevi case. But mentioning the same case, Departments of Finance, Income Tax, Customs etc. have regularised their casual labours. The union representatives requested that the left out casual labour in BSNL also be regularized. The issue of grant of Temporary status to eligible casual labour was also mentioned in the note.

The Minister assured that the case will be sympathetically considered.

 

  1. Wages of Temporary Status Mazdoors/ Casual Labour / Contract Labour.

The union representatives stated that while orders have been issued on the minimum wage etc. by the Government and the BSNL Corporate office, these are more violated than implemented at the field level. Only about half or less of the minimum wage is paid to the labour. Full wages should be ensured.

The Minister agreed to look in to the matter.

 

  1. Implementation of Social Security measures

The Union representatives brought to the notice of the Minister that despite clear orders on the subject, EPF and ESI are not implemented in the case of contract workers in most of the places. These should be strictly implemented.

The Minister assured to look in to this matter also.

 

Com. V.A.N.Namboodiri then handed over a letter of the Joint Action Committee on the issues of ITS Absorption, procurement of equipments, retaining of assets by DOT etc. and requested for another meeting to discuss the issues in detail along with other members of the JAC. He also explained the decision of the JAC to observe 2011-12 as ‘Customer Delight Year ‘and the maximum efforts made by the workers to improve the services. A copy of the JAC circular in this respect was also handed over to the Minister. The effort of the unions was highly appreciated by the Minister.

The meeting ended with expressing thanks to the Minister for the patient hearing and assurances.

 

 

 

 

V.A.N.Namboodiri                                                                New Delhi

President, BSNLEU & BSNLCCWF                                            09-09-2011