Trade Unions to Strike in October, Demanding Correct Wage Payment

21 Sep 2023 , 11:56 AM

Five major national trade unions, including Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), have declared a three-day strike for coal workers starting from October 5 due to wage payment concerns. The trade unions have submitted a joint memorandum to the Chairman of Coal India regarding this issue.

The decision for the strike was made during a meeting of representatives from all five trade unions in Ranchi on Thursday, as stated by A K Jha, the senior vice-president of the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC).

The memorandum highlights the dispute concerning the payment of September salaries for non-executive miners and staff at CIL and Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) based on the National Coal Wage Agreement (NCWA)-10 instead of NCWA-11, which was signed in May.

According to Jha, salaries for July and August were already paid according to the NCWA-11 agreement. The joint release conveyed that approximately 2.60 lakh miners will participate in the strike from October 5-7 if the September salaries are not disbursed as per the NCWA-11 agreement in October.

In a disclosure made in May, Coal India announced a 19% minimum guaranteed benefit (MGB) effective from July 1, 2021, based on emoluments as of June 30, 2021, and a 25% increase in allowances under NCWA-11.

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