MTNL employees defer strike

The 55,000 C and D grade employees in Delhi and Mumbai are demanding new pay scales, giving an increase in wages along with perks and incentives, which have already been passed by the Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC) board.

The protesting staff, which includes linesmen, cable joiners, phone mechanics, clerks, technicians etc. want to be paid industrial dearness allowance at par with workers of other public sector enterprises.

Yesterday, the workers Union led by Chowdhary Swarup Singh had a round of negotiations with Paswan, but there was no breakthrough. Earlier today, the discussions between the union members and the Labour Commission had also failed.

In public sector units (PSUs), employees are divided into two grades: executive officers and non-executive officers. While the Justice Mohan Committee has given scales for officers, which were implemented with effect from January 1, 1997, trade unions representing non-executive employees did not accept the recommendations of the committee, insisting that they would negotiate for their scales instead. The JNC, which comprised of six members each from the management and the workers side, was then constituted to negotiate the wages, which were subsequently approved by the Wage Board.

According to sources, the wages were to be given under three heads: wages, perks of up to 50 per cent of the basic pay, and productivity linked incentives of up to 10 per cent of the distributable profit. The total cost of the wages under the new agreement would have been Rs 750 crore (Rs 600 crore for wages and Rs 150 for perks and incentives). This is nearly 14 per cent of the income of MTNL, which stands at Rs 5,300 crore.

However, according to sources, the Government directors who cleared the wage agreements were pulled up for clearing it, because certain sections in the DoT felt that this would have expensive implications, as DTS workers would also start demanding the same pay scales.

However, when the directors sent a note again to the JNC, to reconsider the decision of providing perks and incentives, the Board turned down the suggestion and stood by its earlier decision of giving the revised scales, including the perks and incentives to the workers.

According to S Rajagopalan, who recently retired as the chairman and managing director of MTNL and headed the JNC which had finalized the wage agreement, "I was keen to give perks, so that the workers were tied to the company through long term advances, like low interest house loan allowances."

“There is a shortage of skilled telecom professionals and MTNL is losing good people to the private sectors, who offer better salaries and work environment," adds Rajagopalan.

According to him, MTNL needs to reward good workers to make them stay on with the company. "Moreover, if we are earning a good profit, we must be free to reward our employees. Besides, what happens in MTNL need not necessarily happen in the DoT," he adds.

Industry experts feel it is wrong to withhold MTNL pay scale revision, on the grounds it might spark a similar demand from DoT employees, because the Government will anyway have to give better wages, once corporatisation happens.