Agreeing to make minimum wages mandatory for all workers across the country and extend social security benefit schemes to construction and scheme workers, the Arun Jaitley-led ministerial panel appears to have made a section of the trade unions consider calling off the proposed nationwide strike on September 2.
RSS-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) emerged satisfied from the two-and-a-half-hour meeting with the ministerial panel on Thursday, but others including AITUC and CITU remained stiff. The two parties had met on Thursday as well.
The CTUs will deliberate among themselves on Friday on the government’s written appeal for withdrawing the strike call outlining measures it would like to take or has already taken to address their 12-point charter of demands raised by the 11 CTUs before taking a final call on the proposed strike.
Addressing the media after the meeting, petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan, a member of the ministerial panel, said the government has agreed to expand the ambit of the minimum wage norm to include all workforce and make it formula-based, keeping the interest of the workers in mind. The CTUs were demanding a minimum monthly wage of R15,000.
The government, he said, has also agreed to raise the salary threshold for mandatory bonus for workers from R10,000 a month at present to R21,000 and the minimum bounty from an annual R3,500 now to R10,000. Taking a considerate view on the contract workers, the government has also decided to ensure sector-specific minimum wages for them. Unions were demanding “equal pay for equal work” for contract workers.
Paying heed to the demand of the CTUs for universal social security cover for all workers, the government has also promised to work on bringing construction, scheme and scheduled workers under the ambit of EPFO and ESIC. It has also agreed to carry out the proposed labour reforms through the tripartite mechanism only. The CTUs were anguished over government’s style of amending labour laws bypassing the age-old tripartite mechanism. “We have appealed to the trade union leaders to reconsider their strike call. There is no need to go ahead with the strike. We are working for the welfare of the workers,” Pradhan said.
However, not satisfied with the two-day deliberations and government’s promises, CITU president A K Padmanabhan said the strike call remains. AITUC’s national secretary Amarjeet Kaur echoed the same view. Though satisfied with the progress on the talks, BMS also said as on Thursday, the strike call remains.A highly-placed official in the labour ministry said, “After today’s meeting, the chance of strike is 50-50.”