SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Aug 30: The Rashtriya Khan Mazdoor Federation (INTUC) has asked Coal India Limited (CIL) to fix the wage for 2.5 lakh outsourcing miners along with the regular employees at the National Coal Wage (NCW) agreement-11 meeting which is scheduled for September 2 at Kolkata.
The federation today shot off a letter to CIL Chairman Pramod Agrawal pointing out that over 2.5 lakh miners working in outsourcing companies are engaged in CIL. They are being forced to work on the minimum wage for more than 12 hours in the mines and are deprived of social security and other facilities. So it is high time to check their exploitation and fix their wage at the meeting convened for NCW agreements-11.
The CIL management has convened a meeting of the Joint Bipartite Committee for the Coal Industry (JBBCCI) on September 2 for deciding agreement on regular employees. So far, five meetings of JBCCI and CIL management have been held but they did not reach an agreement.
“Outsourced miners are being made the subject of mental and economic exploitation by outsourcing companies. It would be justice for them to fix their wage at the NCW meeting along with regular miners of the Coal Company. Rashtriya Khan Mazdoor Federation requests the CIL chairman to do justice with them as they have played a major role in making a record in coal production and dispatch,” said AK Jha, senior vice-president of the Federation.
Jha rued that despite being the 2nd largest union in CIL (having 49,000 members), Rashtriya Khan Mazdoor Federation has been denied representation in JBCCI by the management. “Federation is being denied representation on political pressure of ministry of coal. But it would continue to raise the issue in the interest of miners,” Jha said.
The federation in its letter to the CIL chairman has also pointed out that around 1 lakh sanctioned posts in coal companies are vacant, the dependents of unfit miners have been denied a job on compensation grounds and the pension of retired employees has not been increased. It has requested the chairman to decide on these burning issues of miners on a priority basis at the September 2 meeting.
