LPG plant strike ends in Chelari

Kozhikode: The slow down agitation of the truck drivers at the Indian Oil Corporation’s LPG bottling plant in Chelari has been resolved in a discussion held between the trade union, truck owners and labour officials in Kozhikode. The trade unions called off the ongoing agitation. The movement of the trucks from the plant will be restored from Friday. The agitation was resolved after the truck owners agreed to give employees bonus advance of Rs 10,000 before Monday during the mediation talks held on Thursday.

“Though the truck owners agreed to pay us the bonus advance of Rs 10,000, our dispute with them still remain unresolved. We have demanded a 20 per cent increase in the bonus amount of Rs 7000,” Kannan C, secretary of CITU, Chelari IOC Plant unit, said. The non-cooperation protest had affected the cylinder distribution in the districts of Malabar region during the past week. The protest supported by various trade unions demanded the immediate distribution of festival bonus and salary advance to the employees for Onam and was launched on Saturday.

The 120 truckloads of LGP cylinders which were being distributed from the plant on a daily basis had come down to 60 to 65 loads. This forced dealers in Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kannur, Kasargod and Wayanad district to limit the supply to customers. The Chelari bottling plant caters to the needs of more than 1.5 lakh domestic and commercial customers. Earlier, a discussion between the management and the labour officials in Malappuram to resolve the issue had gone in vain following which the employees launched the non-cooperation from Tuesday. When the agitation affected the LPG distribution in the Malabar districts, the IOC managed to bring gas from its Coimbatore, Mangalore and Kochi plants to meet the shortage though it was insufficient.