Goemakrponn desk
VASCO: Several workers and staff of the Mormugao Port Authority (MPA) affiliated with various unions demonstrated outside the MPA Administrative building at Sada on Wednesday afternoon.
The workers said that there was an inordinate delay in settlement of the Wage Negotiation of All India Port & Dock Workers and on the instructions of Five Federations, The Mormugao Port & Railway Workers Union along with The Goa Port & Dock Employees Union observed the day as “All India Betrayal Day”.
The Union leaders who said that they were against the anti-labour policies of the Management also threatened to go on strike if their demands were not met
Workers union President Abhay Rane said that there was an inordinate delay in concluding the Wage Settlement of Class III & IV employees of Major Ports w.e.f. 01.01.2022. and demanded the Indian Ports Management to step back from illogical and baseless arguments to deny wage increases to Class III & IV employees.
“The Ministry should withdraw the anti-labour and unethical preconditions to deny fair and reasonable wage increase to class III & IV employees. They must also reject all proposals to sabotage the hard-earned and settled wage structure of Class III & IV employees of Major Ports,” said Rane.
“The wage revision for class III & IV employees is due w.e.f 01.01.2022 and the Ministry of Ports, Shipping & Waterways constituted Bipartite Wage Negotiation Committee (BWNC) on 02.06.2021 stating therein that the Committee shall complete the deliberations at the earliest,” he added.
The Committee submitted a common Charter of Demands to the Ministry on 05.09.2021. The first Negotiation committee meeting was held on 23.08.2022 in New Delhi after eleven months of submission of the Charter of Demands.
In the meantime, the Ministry issued preconditions/guidelines for negotiations which are against the principle of fair and reasonable negotiations. The significant points of guidelines say that the negotiated scale of pay of Class III & IV employees should not exceed the existing scale of pay of officers of Major Ports. It says that the Port may opt-out/exit at any point of negotiations process on affordability clause while giving Independence to individual port to accept/adopt fully or partially BWNC Negotiations and other anti-labour points,” said Rane.
“A series of 7 meetings were held at different locations and during the third meeting held at Mumbai, the MPA Chairperson stated that MPA is not in a position to pay the arrears as an additional financial burden and requested that MPA may be kept out of the negotiations. The Ministry had set up a sub-committee under the Chairmanship of Shri Bakshi, the report of which was rightly rejected by Federation Members during the 2nd BWNC Meeting held at Mumbai. Although small petty issues relating to allowances were settled, no major breakthrough could be achieved during the last seven meetings due to the precondition/guidelines issued by the Ministry.
The Management is adamant in their approach and offered a mere 4% fitment without the merger of VDA which was out rightly rejected,” said Rane.
“Since there were no major deliberations, the joint Five Federations held a meeting on 06.03.2024 at Chennai wherein it was unanimously decided to observe an All India Betrayal Day at All Major Ports on 27th March 2024 against the inordinate delay in conclusion of BWNC,” added Rane.
