Tata Steel on Thursday signed a memorandum of settlement with its recognised Tata Workers? Union. The move paves the way for the steel major?s unionised employees to receive an annual bonus for 2010-11 and would result in a total outgo of R171 crore for the company.
The memorandum of settlement was signed by Tata Steel managing director HM Nerurkar, vice-president (coke, sinter and iron & industrial relations) AM Misra and other senior officials on behalf of the company?s management and Tata Workers? Union (TWU) president Raghunath Pandey and other office bearers of the TWU in the presence of conciliation officer and deputy labour commissioner (Jamshedpur) Akhilesh Kumar. It envisages payment of bonus to the unionised employees of the steel major at 18.5% of their salary/wages (on basic pay plus dearness allowance) for 2010-11.
It also takes into account the amount of salary/wages (basic pay plus dearness allowance) of arrears of wage revision paid/payable, as the case may be, for the accounting year 2010-11.
The total payout to the steel major on account of annual bonus for 2010-2011 works out to around R171 crore, payable to around 30,155 employees eligible to receive the annual bonus.
Bonus for 2009-10 was paid at a lower 17.5% of the individual employee?s salary/wages (on basic pay & dearness allowance) and worked out to a total outgo of R155 crore for the company for the total of around 30,335 unionised employees who were eligible for annual bonus last year.
Tata Steel said since all employees of the company were drawing salary/wages higher than the limit laid down in the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965, no employee of the company was eligible for bonus under the act, adding that respecting old traditions, the company was paying bonus to all employees in the unionised category.
In a communiqu? signed by the Tata Steel managing director and the TWU president, all eligible employees have been informed about the payment of annual bonus.