7th CPC ToR, DA Merger and Stepping up...9 Points to be discussed in the Standing Committee of National Council(JCM) - AIRF
AIRF
published the 09 Point Agenda for discussion in the Standing Committee
of National Council(JCM) having burining issues of Centrail Government
Staff of India on its official website today, the same is reproduced and
given below for your information...
No.NC-JCM/2014/VII CPC
Dated: April 9, 2014
The Chairman,
Standing Committee
National Council(JCM),
South Block,
New Delhi
Dear Sir,
Sub: Agenda for discussion in the Standing Committee of National Council(JCM)
An
agenda, comprising of 09 items, to be discussed in the Standing
Committee of the National Council(JCM), is being enclosed herewith for
necessary action.
Yours faithfully,
-sd-
(Shiva Gopal Mishra)
Secretary, Staff Side
National Council(JCM)
DA/As above
Copy to: All Constituent Organisations of the National Council(JCM) – for information.
TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR THE 7th CENTRAL PAY COMMISSION
The
Government of India have finalized the Terms of Reference of the 7th
CPC and circulated the same vide Ministry of Finance’s Resolution
No1/1/2013-E.III (A) dated 28th February, 2014. It is a matter of
concern that and disappointment that the Terms of Reference have been
finalised unilaterally without having thorough discussion with the Staff
Side and their views have also not been taken care of while doing so.
It
may be recalled that a meeting was convened by the Secretary
(Personnel) with the Staff Side members on 24th October, 2013 to discuss
the possible Terms of Reference for the 7th CPC being appointed. In
that meeting the Staff side had specifically requested that a copy of
Terms of Reference for 7th CPC, as proposed by the Ministry of Finance
may be circulated to all concerned and thereafter another meeting with
Secretary, Department of Expenditure and Department of Personnel &
Training be arranged with the Staff Side to discuss and finalise the
same, which is clearly mentioned in para 11 of the Record Note of
Discussion of that meeting. Subsequently, the Staff Side again requested
for an urgent meeting with the Secretary(Expenditure) and Secretary
DoPT for finalization of the Terms of Reference (ToR) for the Seventh
Central Pay Commission vide its letter dated 23rd January, 2014.
However, no such meeting was convened and Terms of Reference for the 7th
CPC have been finalised by the Government on 28th February, 2014.
While
going through the ToR, as finalized by the Government, it is observed
that many of the suggestions of the Staff Side, in regard to date of
effect of Pay Commission, Merger of D.A., Interim Relief, representation
of labour representative in the Commission itself, parity issues in
regard to pensioners, settlement of the pending Anomaly items etc., have
not been duly considered, which is a matter of dissatisfaction.
The
Staff Side, therefore, demands that the Government must discuss the
Terms of Reference for the 7th CPC with them and make necessary
amendments/revisions to the Terms of Reference.
1. Revision of Wage with effect from 01.01.2011
The
present wage structure of the Central Government employees is in vogue
on the basis of the recommendations of the 6th Central Pay Commission,
which took effect from 01.01.2006 in the case of Pay, and in the case of
Allowances from 01.09. 2008.
The wage revision
of the Central Government employees is done every 10 years, which was
recommended by the 5th CPC, however, in the case of Central PUSs, the
wage revision normally takes place after every five years. In the past,
wage revision has been linked to the extent of erosion of real wages.
The degree of inflation in the economy determines the pace of erosion of
the real value of wages. The retail prices of those commodities which
are computed for determining the minimum wages have risen by about 160%
from 01.01.2006 to 01.01. 2011, whereas the D.A. compensation, in the
case of Central Government employees, on that date had been just 51%.
Since
wage revision in all the Central Public Sector Undertakings takes
places every five years through collective bargaining, revision of wages
of the Central Government employees in 10 years gives rise to serious
disparity in wages and allowances of the Central Government employees,
vis-a-vis those in Public Sector Undertakings, which is a major cause of
discontentment among them. The Staff Side, therefore, demands that the
wage revision of the Central Government employees must also take place
after every 5 years on the analogy of CPUSs and therefore, Government
must specify the date of effect of the recommendations of the 7th CPC
accordingly, i.e. to take effect from 01.01.2011 in place of 01.01.2016.
2. Merger of DA with Pay
The
wage revision of the Central Government employees takes place only
through setting up of Central Pay Commissions, which has many a times
proved to be a time consuming process. The 6th CPC submitted its report
in the time frame provided to it, i.e. 18 months. Since the earlier
Commissions had covered many aspects of the principles of wage
determination and the periodicity of such revision had come down, the
exercise might not now require a longer period of time as was the case
earlier, still the 7th CPC shall require a reasonable time frame to go
into the matter judiciously because the implementation of the
recommendations of the 6th CPC have given rise to large number of
anomalies and cadre related grievances.
The
methodology adopted for compensating the erosion in the real value of
wages in the interregnum period had always been though the mechanism of
merger of a portion of DA. The 5th CPC had recommended that the DA must
be merged with pay and treated as pay for computing all allowances as
and when the percentage of Dearness compensation exceeds 50%.
Accordingly even before the setting up of the 6th CPC the DA to the
extent of 50% was merged with pay.
As on
1.1.2014, the Dearness compensation is 100%. The suggestion for merger
of DA to partially compensate the erosion in the real wages was first
mooted by the Gadgil Committee in the post 2nd Pay Commission period.
The 3rd CPC had recommended such merger when the Cost of Living index
crossed over 272 points i.e. 72 points over and above the base index
adopted for the pay revision. In other words, the recommendation of the
3rd CPC was to merge the DA when it crossed 36%. The Government in the
National Council JCM at the time of negotiation initially agreed to
merge 60% DA and later the whole of the DA before the 4th CPC was set
up. The 5th CPC merged 98% of DA with pay. It is, therefore, necessary
that the Government takes steps to merge atleast 50% of DA with pay to
compensate the erosion of the real value of wages immediately.
3. Appointment on compassionate grounds under the Central Government
Under
the pretext of Hon’ble Supreme Court directives, the Central Government
introduced a 5% ceiling on compassionate ground appointment. On account
of this ceiling limit of 5%, a large number of cases of appointment on
compassionate grounds of the dependents of the deceased Central
Government employees have been pending in different departments, with
the result that, the bereaved families of the late employees are
constraints to face undue hardship due to loss of bread winner. Some of
such candidates, belonging to Department of Posts, approached the
Hon’ble Court of Law and obtained favourable orders, however, these
directives have not been acted upon. The Government has chosen to
dillydally by filing SLP in the Supreme Court.
It
may be recalled that, the Central Administrative Tribunals were
established with the intention of expeditious settlement of disputes on
service matters. Even recently the Prime Minister's office ordered that
it would not be open for various Ministries to appeal against the orders
of the Tribunal as a matter of course and efforts must be to explore
the ways of acceptances of the judgements of the Tribunal. In the light
of these directives, the SLP ought to have been withdrawn.
It
is pertinent to further mention here that, the standing Committee on
Department of Personnel in one of their reports has termed the scheme of
compassionate ground appointments as a sacred assurance to a fresh
entrant that if he dies in harness, his family shall not be left in
lurch. Such an assurance is being breached by the provisions of limiting
such appointments to 5% of vacancies.
The
Staff Side is, therefore, of the firm view that this condition of 5%
ceiling must be done away with to provide relief to the bereaved
families of the deceased Central Government employees.
4. Regularisation of Casual/Contingent/Daily Rate workers
Due
to ban on creation of posts and recruitment of personnel that continued
for a very long period and the consequent strain on the existing
workers, many departmental heads had to recruit personnel on daily rated
basis or as casual workers. Thus, almost 25% of the present workforce
in the Governmental organisations are casual workers deployed to do
permanent and perennial nature of jobs, contrary to the prohibition of
such unfair labour practices by the law of the land. In the fifties and
sixties, even the casual workers who had been employed to do casual and
non perennial jobs used to get priority for regular employment as and
when vacancies for such permanent recruitment arise. It is, however, a
matter of concern that thousands of persons are now recruited as casual
workers and kept as such for years together and are paid pittance of a
salary with no benefits, like Provident Fund, Dearness Allowance, other
Compensatory Allowances etc. In order to ensure that they do not get the
benefit of regularisation, these workers are technically discharged
for a few days to be employed afresh again. The modus operandi differs
from one department to another. While in some organisations, they are
recruited through Employment Exchanges, in others, the functions are
contracted out. Not only the quality of work suffers, but it is also an
inhuman exploitation of the workers given the serious situation of
unemployment that exists in the country. While the permanent solution is
to sanction the necessary posts and resort to regular recruitment, the
Government should evolve a scheme by which these casual/contingent/daily
rated workers are made regular workers with all the concomitant
benefits available for regular Government employees. Pending
finalisation of such a scheme for regularisation, the non regular
employees recruited for meeting the exigencies of work must be paid
pro-rata salary on par with similarly placed regular employees on the
principle of equal pay for equal work.
5. Downsizing, Outsourcing, Contractorisation etc.
To
overcome the difficulties emanated from the total ban on recruitment
and creation of posts and more specifically impacted by the 2001
executive fiat of the Government of India in the matter, many
departments had to resort to outsourcing of its functions. Some were
virtually closed down and a few others were privatised or
contractorised. The large scale outsourcing and contractorisation of
functions had a telling effect on the efficacy of the Government
departments. The delivery system was adversely affected and the public
at large suffered due to the inordinate delay it caused in getting the
requisite service. The financial outlay for outsourcing of functions of
each department increased enormously over the years, as a consequence of
which, the quality of work suffered. In order to ensure that the people
do get a better and efficient service from the Government departments
and to raise the image of the Government employees in the eyes of the
common people, it is necessary that the present scheme of outsourcing
and contractorisation of essential functions of the Government must be
abandoned. The practice of outsourcing and contractorisation is nothing
but a cruel exploitation of the alarming situation of unemployment. The
system of outsourcing of the functions seeks to informalise the
workforce. The contract/casual workers get not even one third of the
salary of the regular work force. They have no social security benefits
like pension, provident fund gratuity etc. The Central Government
employees fought against the temporary service rules which was in vogue
in sixties and ensured that the recruitment to Government service is
permanent and the civil servants are not allowed to be fired at the whim
and fancy of their bosses. The outsourcing and contractorisation has
paved way for large scale entry of casual workers and has resulted in
the reversal of what all achieved in this direction through struggles in
the past two decades.
The prevalent system of
outsourcing and contractorisation, therefore, needs to be abandoned and
all the regular and perennial nature works should be entrusted on
regular Government employees only.
6. Revising Overtime Allowance(OTA) and Night Duty Allowance Rates
It
may be seen that the Overtime Allowance is seldom paid to the
Government employees. It is only in case of emergency and in the
contingency in which the work cannot be postponed, like that happens in
the Railways in smooth running of trains round the clock, in the RMS
Division of Postal Department, in the Atomic Energy Commission offices
or when the Parliament is in session in other administrative offices,
employees are asked to do work beyond the stipulated working hours. The
Night Duty Allowance is, however, paid to Government employees who have
to work in night shifts with certain stipulated conditions. The 4th CPC
recommended that since there had been considerable misuse of the
provisions relating to grant of OTA, the Government should find
alternative methods to compensate the employees who are asked to work on
over time and pending such a scheme being evolved recommended not to
revise the rates. However, the Government did not bring in any new
scheme but issued the directive that the OTA and Night duty allowance
will be paid to the employees who are called upon to do overtime or
night duty on the basis of the 4th CPC pay structure. This directive is
still in vogue.
Owing to certain disagreements
with the Government on these issues, this matter was referred to Board
of Arbitration under the JCM Scheme, whereupon the Board of Arbitration,
having found unreasonable position taken by the Government, gave out
the award in favour of the staff and directed the Government to revise
the order whereby the allowance will be linked to the actual pay of the
Government employees. The Government did not accept this award and
decided to approach the Parliament for rejection of the same. The matter
has not yet been placed in the form of a resolution in the Parliament.
Despite the fact that the employees had been abiding by the directive of
their superiors to be on overtime/night duty, and despite having won
the case before the Board of Arbitration they continue to be compensated
on the basis of the Notional pay as in 1986. There cannot be a much
bigger injustice meted out to the employees. The Government must accept
the award of the Board and issue instructions linking the Allowance to
the actual pay of the employee.
7. Stepping
up of pay of seniors who are drawing less pay than the juniors
consequent on fixation of pay due to implementation of 6th CPC
recommendations between Direct Recruits and Promotees
Consequent
upon implementation of the recommendations of the VI CPC, in respect of
pay scales of various categories of staff, there are certain situations
where the senior who were promoted before 01.01.2006 are getting lesser
pay than their juniors promoted after 01.01.2006, on fixation of their
pay w.e.f. 01.01.2006. This, being a serious anomaly, has been raised by
different department in their Departmental Anomalies Committees for
redressal thereof. While clarifications regarding stepping up of pay of
senior who are drawing less pay than the juniors between Direct
Recruitees and Promotees, i.e. the seniors and juniors placed in a pay
scale, having some Direct Recruitment Quota, have already been issued,
whereby seniors’ pay has been stepped up and equated to the juniors.
However, in grades where there is no element of Direct Recruitment
available, this provision has not been made till date, with the result
that, the seniors are still drawing lesser pay than their juniors after
fixation of their pay in new pay scales w.e.f. 01.01.2006, which, being a
serious anomaly, is resulting in discontentment prevailing among the
seniors.
The main incongruity in this case is
basically due to the fact that it is for the first time that the 6th CPC
has recommended specific entry level pay for Direct Recruits (DRs).
This has resulted in employees who were appointed in service prior to
the DRs and got promoted earlier are getting less pay as compared to
their counterparts recruited directly and who joined after 1.1.2006. It
has always been the case that on promotion, the pay of a promoted
employee is never fixed at less than the entry level of pay of that post
as admissible to a direct recruit.
The Staff
Side, therefore, is of the firm view that orders need to be issued to
the effect that the pay on promotion w.e.f. 01.01.2006 would not be
fixed less than at the prescribed minimum of the Entry Pay as provided
for the Direct Entrants in the Revised Pay Rules, to eliminate this
anomalous situation.
8. Stepping up of pay of senior employees at par with their juniors consequent upon implementation of MACPS
The
Modified Assured Progression Scheme(MACPS) came into effect on
01.09.2008, and prior to this, Assured Career Progression(ACP) was in
vogue. There are number of cases where the seniors who were promoted
before implementation of the MACPS and the juniors who could not get
normal promotion due to non-availability of vacancy or otherwise, and
were extended the benefit of financial upgradation under MACPS on
fulfillment of conditions laid down therein, the seniors are drawing
lesser pay than their juniors under this scheme.
The
MACP Scheme does not stipulate the provision of stepping up of pay of
the seniors at par with their juniors, in case the seniors getting
lesser pay than their juniors, which is absolutely unjustified and
discriminative.
The Staff Side has repeatedly
raised this issue in the MACPS’s Anomaly Committee as well, however,
this discrepancy has not been done away with till date, with the result
that, the seniors are still drawing lesser pay than their juniors,
having been extended the benefit of financial upgradation under MACPS
and this is causing deep sense of frustration prevailing among the
seniors.
Staff Side, therefore, is of the firm
opinion that the above-mentioned discrepancy needs to be addressed at
the earliest to provide relief to the seniors.
9. Granting of Additional Pay to Loco & Traffic Running Staff
On
the basis of recommendations of the 6th CPC, Additional Pay of Rs.1000
p.m. with appropriate Dearness Allowance has been granted in favour of
Loco Pilot(Mail/Express)/Sr. Motorman(PB-II, GP
Rs.4200)/(Rs.6000-9800)(5th CPC). Similarly, Rs.500 has been granted to
Loco Pilot(Passenger II/ Motorman)(PB-II, GP Rs.4200)/(Rs.5500-9000)(5th
CPC) and Guard(Mail/Exp.)(PB-II, GP Rs.4200) (Rs.5500-9000)(5th CPC).
But the same Additional Pay has not been granted to rest of the Loco
& Traffic Running Staff, causing great injustice to these set of
Loco & Traffic Running Staff.
It would be
quite appropriate that the Additional Pay should be granted in favour of
all other categories of Loco & Traffic Running Staff.
Source: AIRF
[http://www.airfindia.com]
