Several unions of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, including the recognised union, on Wednesday termed the decision to offload 10 per cent shares in RINL as a step towards privatisation.
Memoranda In separate memoranda submitted to Union Steel Secretary G. Mohan Kumar during his visit to the plant, they said they would totally oppose disinvestment.
Later N. Rama Rao, J. Ayodhyaramu, Y.T. Das (CITU), D. Adinarayana (AITUC), Mantri Rajasekhar, Neerukonda Ramachandra Rao (INTUC) and others said they would observe bandh and stall work to bring pressure on the government to drop disinvestment process.
Emotional issue “The plant was set up after Visakha Ukku Andhrula Hakku agitation. It is an emotional issue and other options should be explored to fund VSP’s expansion,” they stated.
Captive mines The unions also sought allotment of captive mines, employment to displaced persons, increase in wages to frontline executives and continuation of 20 per cent HRA on revised pay scale to the employees.
SEA representation Later, the Steel Executives’ Association, in a representation, said that unrest had arisen due to the implementation of the Pay Revision 2012 for non-executives and the morale of the executives, especially the shop floor managers (JO to E4), had affected as the non-executive employees, working under them, were drawing a higher pay than most of them.
SEA president K. Madhva Rao and general secretary M. Srinivas sought immediate wage revision for executives, immediate implementation of pension, modification of the PRF formula and continuation of the production-linked incentive.
