NEW DELHI, JAN 29: Five trade unions and National Confederation of Officers Associations of Central Public Sector Undertakings (NCOA) today decided to go ahead with their proposed day-long nationwide strike of PSU employees on February 2 following failure of talks with the government on issues relating to wages and privatisation.The trade unions including Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) and Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS) decided to go ahead with the strike as Labour Minister Dr Satyanarayan Jatiya did not give any commitment on issues raised by them, CITU General Secretary M K Pandhe said.Pandhe, however, clarified that BJP-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) and Congress-affiliated INTUC were not participating in the strike though they were supporting the issues raised by the five unions.The other issues raised by the unions include government assistance to the sick industries and payment of wages for several PSU employees. "Government is resorting toreckless disinvestment and privatisation without consulting the trade unions," he said, adding that the Minister had not given them any firm commitment on this.Pandhe criticised what he called "the ministers apathy" towards the demand for bringing down the periodicity of the wage revision in the PSUs to five years as against the present 10 years."Since the Minister did not give any commitment on the issues involved in the strike notice, the meeting could not come to any positive conclusion. We appeal to all the psu workers to go ahead with the all-India strike on February 2 as scheduled," Pandhe said.Meanwhile, NCOA asked all its affiliates to extend support to the strike called by the trade unions and said that besides moral support the officers would not cross picket lines and would not do any task that is normally assigned to the workers. "If safety requires that certain equipment should not be operated, officers would not allow the operation of that equipment," NCOA said in a statement.INTUCPresident G Sanjeeva Reddy said some of the trade union centres and independent unions had served strike notice in PSUs for February 2 which was not supported by INTUC."One-day strike was not going to change the atmosphere prevailing in the country, rather the concerted and meaningful dialogue amongst social partners involving government would be the only way out," Reddy said in a statement. He also appealed to all the affiliated unions of INTUC in the PSUs to desist from striking work on February 2.In fact, ever since India embarked on economic reform in 1991 it has always been politicians who have bickered over the pace and scope of the drive to remove four decades of socialist shackles. Now, organised labour is threatening to put the brakes on the "second generation of reforms". But the rash of labour militancy is far from over. A stoppage of work by about 400,000 telecoms sector employees is looming on February 15.The protests follow a lengthy period of relative industrial peace.According to thelatest Labour Ministry data available, mandays lost due to strikes fell to 6.3 million in 1997 from 15.13 million five years earlier, when the reform process was in its infancy. Sanjaya Baru, an economist at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, says much of the sudden labour unrest to a copycat "contagion effect". Indeed, power workers around the country staged a one-day protest last week in sympathy with the Uttar Pradesh strikers.
