Visakhapatnam: Steel Employees Stage Dharna for Wages
Visakhapatnam: Steel plant employees led by the CITU staged a dharna in front of the work executive director’s office on Friday demanding immediate release of wages. The union leaders later submitted a memorandum to the executive director.
Honorary president of CITU, J Ayodhyaram, said that as per the company rules, the steel plant management should be paying wages by the seventh of every month. But, contrary to rules, the wage payments were irregular for the last three months. The salary bills total `90 crore a month.
The unionists warned that the employees would launch a full-scale agitation if the salaries were not paid on time.
JMS general secretary Varasala Srinivasa Rao said banks were slapping abnormal fines on EMIs for the delay in payment of instalments due to the irregular release of the wages. “All the banks have declared health accounts as NPA and are pressing the employees for clearance of dues.”
“The banks are waiving loans worth several crores in the case of big business, but are harassing the employees who just missed one or two EMIs,’’ Srinivasa Rao said.
Sources said the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd, for the first time in its 42-year-old history, found it difficult to pay salaries to its employees. The steel plant has 13,557 regular employees, including 9,154 non-executive cadre employees and 4,403 executive cadre employees.
A senior officer of RINL said the management was paying salaries before the scheduled date till some time ago. However, due to the current non-movement of raw material from Gangavaram Port to the Steel Plant due to the employees’ strike, the regular business was affected. “The problem has been solved and we will pay the salaries in a day or two.”