SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Aug 5: The management of Coal India Limited (CIL) has again ignored the Indian National Trade Union Cong (INTUC), a frontal labor organization of the Congress, in a decision-making meeting.
The CIL management has called its apex committee and high power committee meetings on August 9 in Kolkata for a discussion over contractual miners’ related issues to which only four national trade unions – BMS, HMS, AITUC and CITU- have been invited.
In March, the CIL management had included representatives of the INTUC’s Indian National Mines Workers Federation (INMWF) at JBCCI-11th National Coal Wage Agreement (for fixing wage of miners) on directive of the Calcutta High Court.
But for the August 9 meeting, the INTUC has once again been ignored by the CIL management.
Indian National Mines Workers Federation (INMWF) vice-president and one of the JBCCI alternative members AK Jha said that it is an unfortunate decision of the CIL management and a major jolt to miners.
“It is a political decision of CIL taken on directive of the BJP-led union government to ignore the INTUC. On the directive of the BJP government, CIL had removed the INTUC from the JBCCI but the Calcutta High Court had restored it in the interest of miners,” Jha said.
However, an INTUC leader close to Rakeshwar Pandey (INTUC Jharkhand president) said that the Calcutta High Court had given permission to INMWF Anup Singh (MLA) faction only for attending the JBCCI meeting, So, the CIL management has not invited INTUC’s Sanjeeva Reddy faction, he added.
A senior official of Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) said that since cases between the rival factions of INTUC are still pending in different courts of the country, the CIL management can’t invite representatives of any faction for a meeting till the issue is settled.
As per the letter, the CIL management has invited K Laxma Reddy (BMS), DD Ramanand (CITU), Nathulal Pandey (HMS) and Ramendra Kumar ( AITUC) for Apex Committee meeting.
Dilip Murlidharan (BMS), Mithilesh Singh (CITU), Ramendra Kumar (AITUC) and Nathulal Pandey (HMS) have been invited for the High Power Committee meeting.
