Appeals to Trade Unions to Reconsider Call for Proposed Strike (2 Sep,2015) : Bandaru Dattatreya

Government Working Positively on 9 of the 12 Demands of Trade Unions : Bandaru Dattatreya

Appeals to Trade Unions to Reconsider Call for Proposed Strike Tomorrow

Shri Bandaru Dattatreya, the Minister of State(IC) for Labour and Employment held a press conference here today. Elaborating on the initiatives and continuing efforts of the Government to address the issues and concerns of the Trade Unions for the welfare of workers, the Minister said that of the twelve demands of Trade Unions, the Government is positively working on at least nine demands. Shri Dattatreya said that as already assured while taking Labour Law reforms, the Trade Unions will be consulted. In continuation of earlier appeal to Trade Unions on 27th August, 2015, the Minister appealed again to reconsider their call for proposed strike tomorrow in the interest of workers and the Nation.

In this context, Shri Bandaru Dattatreya has sent a letter to to striking Trade Unions.

Here is the text of the letter-

“Dear

“This is with reference to my letter and appeal to you for reconsidering your call for strike on 2nd of September 2015 in the light of demands raised by the Central Trade Unions. While requesting you to reconsider your decision, I would like to bring the following to your consideration.

“The Charter of Demands given by you has been on high priority for me. I had held meeting with you on 19th Nov., 2014 to discuss the issues concerning the Charter of Demands. Thereafter, another meeting was held on 15th May, 2015 where Shri Dharmendra Pradhan, Hon’ble MoS (IC) for Petroleum and Natural Gas and Shri Piyush Goyal, Hon’ble MoS (IC) for Power also participated. The Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC), constituted by Hon’ble Prime Minister, held its first meeting with you on 19th July, 2015.

“The second meeting of IMC to discuss the various issues relating to the Charter of Demands with Central Trade Unions was held for two days on 26th& 27th August, 2015.

“In view of the suggestions given by you in the meetings held by Inter-Ministerial Committee, the Government assured the following:

1. “Government is seriously considering amendments to the Minimum Wages Act to give minimum wages to all workers. As per the proposed amendment, the Central Government will prescribe National Minimum Wage for three different categories of States. It would be mandatory for the States to fix their minimum wage not below the National Minimum Wage so prescribed by the Central Government. If the minimum wage already notified by a State is higher than the National Minimum Wage prescribed by the Central Government, the higher notified minimum wage shall prevail.

“While prescribing the National Minimum Wage the norms given by ILC and Supreme Court judgement will be taken into consideration. At present the National Floor Level Minimum Wage is Rs. 160 per day but with the implementation of the said norms the minimum wage would be not less than Rs. 273 per day.

2. “For the purpose of bonus, the wage eligibility limit and calculation ceiling would be appropriately revised. It is proposed to revise the wage eligibility limit from Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 21,000 and calculation ceiling from Rs. 3500 to Rs. 7,000 or the minimum wage notified by the appropriate Government for that category of employment, whichever is higher. With the proposed revision of the minimum wages, the average calculation ceiling would be about Rs.10,000.

3. “The Government has taken many steps for the social security of all the workers, especially unorganized workers. The Government is working out ways to include construction workers, rickshaw pullers, auto rickshaw drivers and volunteers of different schemes like Aanganwadi Centres, Mid Day Meal Centres etc. For organized workers also many initiatives have been taken like Universal Account Number (UAN) for portability of account for EPFO members and Second Generation Health Reform Initiatives by ESIC.

4. “Regarding contract workers, a comprehensive review of the existing Act is being considered. The main features of the proposed revised Act would be deployment of contract labour through registered staffing agencies to be encouraged to ensure social security coverage and same working condition for contract workers as that of the regular workers. The issue of same wages to contract workers as that of regular workers for same nature of work requires wider consultation and a committee will be constituted for this purpose, if required.

5. “Government has already enhanced minimum pension for EPFO members and every pensioner gets minimum pension of Rs.1,000 per month perpetually.

6. “Labour Law reforms will be based on tripartite consultations as already stated by the Hon’ble Prime Minister. The States are also being advised to follow the tripartite process. I have held many tripartite consultation meetings with you on proposed labour law amendments. In future also, the tripartite consultation will be held for any proposed change in the labour laws.

7. “For strict adherence to Labour Law enforcement, advisory has been issued to the States and strict monitoring has been initiated by the Central Government. I have written a D.O. letter dated 25.05.2015 to Chief Ministers of all the States for strict enforcement of Labour Laws. Secretary (L&E) has also written D.O. letters dated 27.05.2015 and 26.08.2015 to Chief Secretaries of all the States in this regard. A circular for strict enforcement of labour laws was also issued by the Chief Labour Commissioner (Central) on 26/08/2015.

8. “For employment generation, the Government has taken many initiatives like Make in India, Skill India, Mudra Yojana and National Career Service Portal etc.

9. “Abolition of interviews for all recruitments at relatively junior level jobs which do not require any special knowledge/expertise is being done for transparency and expediting the process of recruitment.

10. “Inflation is lowest in last many years except for two items, onions and pulses. Government is taking necessary steps to contain the prices of these two commodities also.

11. “The Hon’ble Finance Minister in his concluding remarks has very clearly said that the new Government has charted out a very pragmatic economic agenda for the benefit of everyone, especially those who are poor and disadvantaged section of the society. However, this agenda needs your support and will appreciate if we can get your valuable inputs on this. He has also assured that for this a continuous dialogue will be maintained with the labour unions.

12. “He also mentioned that as far as the FDI in Railways is concerned, it is necessary because Railways require huge investment for upgrading the .infrastructure. This is possible only with the help of private sector and hence FDI is being allowed in railways and the FDI will be only in infrastructure and will not be allowed in the operation of Railways.

13. “As far as FDI in Defence is concerned, the Finance Minister has explained that India is the largest importer of military hardware in the world and this means a large amount of funds are being paid in foreign exchange to outsiders including private organizations. On the other side when we produce military hardware within the country, we not only save in terms of foreign exchange but also create many jobs within the country. Hence it is very important that we take advantage of FDI in defence to achieve three objectives of (i) saving foreign exchange, (ii) creation of jobs and (iii) more importantly to ensure that we are not dependent on outsiders for the security of the nation.

Finally, as the Hon’ble Prime Minister has already stated, the journey of labour reforms will not be meaningful until we have dialogue and consultation with the labour and labour unions. I assure that we will have consultations with labour unions and give due weightage to the views of labour unions in all such initiatives including the initiatives of other Departments which may affect the labour.

With warm regards.”

Source: PIB News

Arun Jaitley on OROP – Annual pension revision do not happen anywhere in the world

Arun Jaitley on OROP – Annual pension revision do not happen anywhere in the world

“For the first time, a clause in OROP was openly rejected. The Finance Minister has refused to give annual increment for pensioners like servicemen get.”

“The task of the finance minister is very much like the housewife’s. She has to spend each and every rupee wisely to make sure that there is no cash crunch towards the end of the month,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the reporters during a press meet.

Ex-servicemen have been fighting for the past 78 days demanding the implementation of One Rank One Pension. The finance minister told the reporters, “We are ready to give them OROP, but we cannot give them annual increments like they demand. We can consider revisions once every five years. The 7th Pay Commission will soon submit its report to the Government. If we have to implement their recommendations and the OROP, there will be additional expenses. We’ll have to manage that too.”

He also said that the Central was committed to the long pending demand of One Rank One Pension but the ‘only difficulty’ as the ‘arithmetical translation’.

“My work is very similar to the responsibilities of a housewife. She has to run the family with the money that her husband brings and ensure that there is no cash shortage throughout the month. Therefore, we will not be able to give a 3% annual increment on the pension that is being demanded by the veterans.

“We have the responsibility of looking after these soldiers who retire at the age of 35 or 38. We agree to implement the OROP scheme. Pensioners are likely to see a substantial increase in their pensions. But it is impossible to increase the pension each year. Accepting these “unreasonable concessions” will form the basis for others like BSF and CRPF to make similar demands.

“I have, in my mind, an opinion and formula for OROP scheme. Others too will have their own opinions and formulae, but they have to be reasonable and rational criteria. OROP may not be a scheme with monthly or annual revisions,” he said.

Two major obstacles are, one is yearly increment and another issue of base year. There have been several rounds of talks between the official and the protesting veterans on this issues. But all of those have failed.
The pension drawn by soldiers who had retired earlier much less pension, when compared with the pension received by those who had retired recently. Instead of taking into account the calendar year in which the soldier retires, OROP fixes the pension on the basis of the rank and the number of years the soldier had served, to calculate his pension. Any future enhancement in the rates of pension, it would benefit all the ex-servicemen. This is the most important feature of the scheme.

More than 20 lakh veterans and 6 lakh war widows all over the country are hoping that their pensions will be revised based on OROP Scheme effective from 1.4.2014.

Source: 90paisa.org

7th Pay Commission Report Delay – Karnataka COC

7th Pay Commission Report Delay – Karnataka COC 

7th CPC Report Delay

 
Comrades,
1) The 7th CPC had issued following statement in July 2015 in its website http://7cpc.india.gov.in/

“Further to the memoranda received from a variety of Organisations, Federations, Groups representing civil employees in the Government of India as also from the Defence Services, the Commission has had fruitful and wide ranging discussions on relevant issues with all stakeholders. Such interactions have now been concluded. Valuable inputs have been received and the work of compilation and finalization of the report is underway, so that the Commission completes its task in the time frame given to it. Accordingly, any future requests for meeting with the Commission will not be entertained.”

This shows clearly that the 7th CPC wanted to present its report on 28th August 2015 itself with no extension of time.

2) On August 7, 2015 National Council (Staff Side) Secretary Comrade Shiva Gopal Mishraji met the Chairman, Seventh Central Pay Commission, Shri Ashok Kumar Mathur and Secretary, Mrs. Meena Agarwal. It was assumed that the report of the VII CPC, as was promised for 28th August this year, may be delayed by one month.

This shows that the 7th CPC was delayed only by few days or maximum one month.

3) Many news papers including Danik Bhaskar had reported that the 7th CPC will be submitting its report in September 2015 itself.

4) The 7th CPC chairman had informed in a PTI interview Justice Ashok Kumar Mathurji had stated that “The Commission will submit its report by the end of September,

5) The Hon’able Finance Minister had informed the parliament that the provisions for implementation for 7th CPC is made from Jan 2016 onwards and budget provisions are also made for the current year and next year. which says the salary outgo of central government employees will go up by 9.56 per cent to Rs 1,00,619 crore in current fiscal. The pace will increase further in 2016-17 at 15.79 per cent to Rs 1.16 lakh crore with the likely implementation of the 7th Pay Commission award, the outgo towards salary will further rise in 2017-18 to over Rs 1.28 lakh crore.

6) The 7th Pay Commission has asked for a two month extension from the government. That the Commission is hoping that the government would take a call on One Rank One Pension, so they could modulate their own formulation in terms of pay revision. The Commission is also expected to take a call on lateral entry and performance based pay. Source: NDTV News and Hindustan times

One more reason for delay in the submission of the 7th CPC is likely due to rise in prices of few essential commodities which is due to deficit rainfall .

7) Now four month extension of term of 7th Central Pay Commission is made the Union Cabinet chaired by the Hon’able Prime Minister, gave its approval for the extension of the term of the 7th Central Pay Commission by four months up to 31.12.2015.

8) Now the delay in submission of report and its implementation will be there and actual benefit of 7th CPC will occur only from July 2016. As Government will constitute its own committee to study the implementation of the 7th CPC report and issuing orders.

9) Now larger questions are raised by this extension of term of the 7th CPC by four months by the Central Government as follows.

a) When will the 7th CPC will submit its report? Now it is clear that the report will be submitted only in December 2015 only, if the 7th CPC feels that the assigned work has been completed it can submit its report any time, its only upto the 7th CPC and the Central Government. As a employee we should put pressure on them.

b) Is the 7th CPC extension so required, from the beginning the 7th CPC was against the extension of time, even at last stages the it had thought of one month extension only. Suddenly four months delay in submission of report has raised so many questions and the 7th CPC can submit an interim report.

c) If DA merger would have taken place in 2014, the Central Government employees would have got a benefit of more than 20% wage hike.

d) Now the delay in submission of 7th CPC report is there, we should immediately demand the interim relief to the Central Government employees and merger of DA with effect from 2014.

We sincerely hope the 7th CPC report will be submitted at the earliest and the Central Government will implement the report at the earliest, so that the aspiration of the Central Government employees are taken care by the Central Government. While doing so the justify wages are to be calculated by the 7thCPC.

Comradely yours

(P.S.Prasad)
General Secretary

Source: www.karnatakacoc.blogspot.in