Seventh
Central Pay Commission has submitted its recommendations to Government on
19-11-2015. As most of the
recommendations are retrograde and far below the expectations of the employees,
the JCM National Council Staff side under the united banner of National Joint
Council of Action (NJCA) strongly protested and demanded modification of the
retrograde recommendations. It further
decided to organise indefinite strike and letter conveying the decision was
sent to the Cabinet Secretary.
Main demands raised by NJCA
are: (1) minimum wage of Rs.26,000/- as
against 18000 recommended by CPC, (2) upward revision of the fitment formula
and application of the same in all pay scales in the pay matrix, (3) retention
of percentage of HRA as 30%, 20% and 10% as against 24%, 16% and 8% recommended
by CPC. (4) recommendation of the CPC to
abolish important allowances should be rejected, (5) reject recommendations to discontinue all
non-interest bearing advances, (6) reject the recommendation to reduce the
salary to 80% for the second year of child care leave, (7) reject
recommendations to impose more stringent conditions on MACP scheme such as
“very good” benchmark, qualifying examination, re-introduction of efficiency
bar etc. (8) modification in the parity-in-pension and acceptance of other
minimum demands of pensioners and (9) Grant of Civil Servants Status to Gramin
Dak Sevaks and extending all the benefits of departmental employees to Gramin
Dak Sevaks on pro-rata basis. There are
other demands also which are equally important.
Govt. constituted an
Implementation Cell in the Finance Ministry to study the recommendations and
submit its proposal to the Empowered Committee of Secretaries under the
Chairmanship of Cabinet Secretary.
Empowered Committee will submit final concrete proposals to Cabinet for
approval. On receipt of the letter of NJCA
addresed to Cabinet Secretary regarding indefinite strike, the Implementation
Cell called the JCM staff side leaders to present its view points before the
cell. Accordingly the NJCA leaders met the Convenor of Implementation Cell and
explained the justification of each demands in the charter of demands.
NJCA decided to give strike
notice on 11th March 2016 to commence the indefinite strike from 11th April
2016. At this stage the Cabinet
Secretary invited the JCM National Council staff side leaders for discussion
with Empowered Committee of Secretaries on 1st March 2016. The NJCA leaders attended the discussion and
once again explained the justification of all demands before the Empowered
Committee. Cabinet Secretary gave a
patient hearing but made no commitment on any of the demands. He finally
appealed the staff side to give some more time for the Government for
inter-departmental consultations and to take a final view and decision on ech
demand raised by the staff side in the charter of demnds.
NJCA met and reviewed the
whole situation and came to the conclusion that as the Government has appealed
for some more time to take a decision, it will be appropriate on the part of
the staff side to give time to the Government, so that later on Government
cannot blame that NJCA went on sudden strike inspite of the appeal from the Government
to give some more time. Secondly,
Railways and Defence departments come under the purview of Industrial Dispute
Act and as per the ID Act, if strike notice is served on 11th March 2016,
strike should commence within six weeks from the date of serving notice, by
which time the election in four states will not be over. Thirdly, as the Assembly elections in four
states have been notified and election code of conduct has come into force, the
employees of four states will find it difficult to join the strike as many of
them will be drafted for election duty.
Taking into consideration all the above aspects, the NJCA decided to
defer the indefinite strike from April 11th to July 11th and to serve the
strike notice on June 9th instead of March 11th.
Now the ball is in the
Govt.’s court. Before June 9th, ie. date
of serving strike notice, the Government will be getting seven month time from
the date of submision of the 7th CPC report, to take a final decision on all the
demands and also to come to a negotiated settlement with the staff side. Any further delay is unwarranted and
unjustified and cannot be tolerated. If
the Government take an adamant stand and reject the justified demands of the
staff side, then we will be forced to serve notice for indefinite strike from
July 11th. Government can not take the
staff side for granted.
AIPEU Group-C CHQ appeals to all the
constituents of NJCA to take a firm stand and not to compromise on minimum
demands. Let us also pledge that we will
be second to none, in organising the indefinite strike in Postal and ensure
cent per cent participation of our membership at gross root level in the
impending strike.
No comments:
Post a Comment