RINL employees plan strike on Jan 29-30 over ‘fair pay’

Visakhapatnam: In a rare show of unity, all the trade unions of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant have served a notice to the management to go a 48-hour strike on January 29 and 30 demanding implementation of wage revision and payment of arrears due from January 1, 2017.

The management has been evading its implementation citing losses as the reason even as SAIL, which is also obliged to implement the decisions of National Joint Committee on Steel (NJCS) is implementing wage revision with effect from October, 2021. SAIL employees have also served a strike notice demanding payment of arrears due for 39 months from January 1, 2017 to March 1, 2020. Visakha Steel Employees’ Congress president Neerukonda Ramachandra Rao told Bizz Buzz on Wednesday that they have decided to go on strike along with SAIL employees on 29 and 30.

During the wage settlement at NJCS meeting, an agreement was signed for 10 years with 13 per cent minimum guaranteed benefit (MGB) and a hike of 26.5 per cent in perks.

CITU leader J Ayodharam said several representations submitted by them to the RINL management for implementation of their legitimate demand for wage revision have fallen on deaf ears. He said this time they are very firm on going ahead with their threat on ‘cease work’ agitation for two days.

SAIL employees are insisting on release of arrears and settlement on payment of revised night shift allowance, mines and house rent allowances. Rao said implementation of wage revision for RINL will entail a financial commitment of Rs 264 crore per annum. While SAIL has 58,000 non-executive employees, RINL employees’ strength is 9300. If implemented, the wage revision will benefit Rs 15,000 to Rs 25,000 depending on seniority and grade of the employees.

NJCS decisions are applicable to SAIL and RINL. The NJCS meeting is convened in New Delhi on January 20. The demands also include merger of RINL with SAIL, scrapping of MoU signed recently with Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL) for reviving Blast Furnace-3 and supplying the blooms to the Jindal’s plant at Angul in Odisha.

Management said the MoU with JSPL will ensure availability of about Rs 800-Rs 900 crore for RINL in the form of working capital advance/raw materials required for consistent operation of BF-3 in exchange of supplying about 90,000 tonnes of cast blooms every month from Steel Melting Shop-2 (SMS-2) of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant. The management hopes that the collaborative effort will generate additional revenue from increased sales of about 1 lakh tonnes of saleable steel for RINL even after supply of committed quantities to JSPL.

In the notice served to the management recently, the RINL unions including those affiliated to AITUC, CITU, HMS and CFTUI, in accordance with the provisions contained in sub-section (1) of Section 22 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, stated that they propose to go on strike demanding implementation of new wages on par with SAIL employees, withdrawal of January 27, 2021 decision for strategic sale of RINL, merger of RINL with SAIL and scrapping of MoU with JSPL.