After the seventh meeting of the National Coal Wage Agreement (NCWA-11) at Coal India headquarters, Kolkata failed on November 30, 2022, all the members of the Joint Bipartite Committee for the Coal Industry (JBCIs) of the four central trade unions, HMS, BMS, AITUC, CITU, decided to hold a protest on December 9, 2022 in all subsidiary companies against the deliberate delay in the wage agreement by the Coal India top management and their stubborn attitude in the meeting. It has also been decided to celebrate the protest day and to hold a joint convention in Ranchi on 07.01.2023 to decide the future strategy.
In view of this, the four major organizations of WCL (HMS, BMS, AITUC, CITU) met on 05.12.2022 at the office of Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh at Vekoli headquarters and unanimously outlined a roadmap for holding the protest day/demonstrations throughout Vekoli on December 09. Also, after preparing the outline, a press release was issued by the top leadership of the four trade unions involved in the meeting at the press conference. The four major organisations of Vekoli, HMS, BMS, AITUC and CITU called for a strong response to the management by holding protests in each region, sub-region and units of Vekoli on December 9.
In today’s meeting and press conference, Shri Shiv Kumar Yadav (JBCCI Member, HMS), Shri Deepu Pillai (HMS), Shri Dilip Satpute (BMS), Shri Sunil Mishra (BMS), Shri K.P. Singh (AITUC) and Shri H.S. Baig (CITU) were mainly present.
(English translation of Pres Release in Hindi)
Press Release
On 30 November 20202, the 7th meeting of JBCCI on NCWA-11 (National Coal Exchange Agreement-11) was held in Kolkata. In view of the irresponsible and inimical intention of the Coal India management, the four central organizations involved in JBCCI – BMS, HMS, AITUC, CITU – have unanimously decided to observe a protest day on December 9, 2022 in all the subsidiaries of Coal India including WCL.
This will be followed by a joint convention in Ranchi on January 7, in which representatives from all organizations will participate. Further modalities of the movement will be decided in the joint convention of Ranchi. A joint meeting of the four organizations was also held at WCL today under the central leadership, in which it was decided that on December 9, a joint gate meeting will be held in all the mines and protest day will be observed. Even in the most difficult circumstances, coal workers produced the coal needed to supply the energy for the country. Despite that, when the time has come to increase the wages of coal workers, Coal India is not at all serious about this issue.
The Wage Settlement-10 of coal workers has expired on June 30, 2021. The Wage Agreement-11 of coal workers is payable from July 1, 2021. The wage agreement has already been delayed by about 16 months. Due to this, there has been an atmosphere of great dissatisfaction among the workers, about which the labor organizations had also informed the management. But in view of the dictatorial attitude of Coal India, the four trade unions decided to meet among themselves and launch an agitation. Workers working in the coal industry are also fully prepared for the agitation. If the Coal India management does not take any decision on the wage agreement quickly, then the movement will become more intense in the future.