The national trade unions in Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) are gearing up to make a grand success the proposed one-day token strike in all the mines of Singareni on February 14 demanding the state government fulfill the promises made during elections for recognized trade union.
The Central trade unions — AITUC, INTUC, BMS and CITU — served the strike notice on the Singareni management and the Labour Department. The trade union leaders had also submitted memorandum to all respective general managers of all the UG and OCP mines demanding the government fulfil the poll promises.
In the run up to the token strike, the union leaders visited the mines and held gate-meetings, relay hunger strike and staged dharnas. The miners wore black-badges and raised slogans against the state government for not reviving the dependent employment scheme.
Due to non-constitution of medical board since last over one-and-a-half years, several hundreds of miners who are ailing of various diseases were neither being declared “medically fit or unfit” and thereby their dependants were unable to get employment and earn for the family. More than 750 miners were reportedly ailing from various diseases and unable to attend to duties and their families have been denied a source of income for several months.
Incidentally, the Telangana Boggu Ghani Karmika Sangham (TGBKS) affiliated to TRS, is yet to get its act together even after winning the recognized trade union elections. It is yet to collect the recognized trade union certificate from the Union labour department. Further, it has also not constituted the regional official committees in the SCCL.
