More than 300,000 workers of Coal India, the world's largest miner, went on a one-day strike on Monday demanding higher bonus. This caused the company a production loss of 1 million tonne or Rs 120 crore, in value terms.
The workers, backed by five major unions, now plan to go on a 72-hour strike next month after the management refused to give in to their demands. “The strike was complete. Since the response from the management was not positive, we are planning to go for a three-day strike next month. All the unions will sit together and finalise the dates soon,” said Arunalok Banerjee, vice-president, Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), Coal India. On Monday’s strike was called by five federations — the Congress-backed Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), the CPI(M) backed-CITU and All India Trade Union Congress, Hind Mazdoor Sabha and BJP-backed Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh.
The unions went on a strike even after the state-run company promised to higher bonus of Rs 17,000 to each worker, as against Rs 15,000 paid last year. The unions have demanded Rs 25,000 as productivity bonus.
“This is unfortunate. A day’s strike causes a loss of Rs 120 crore in terms of production,” said N C Jha, chairman and managing director. The company had refused to accept the demands as it was “not viable”.
On Monday's strike affected the company significantly, sources said. Among the subsidiaries, only eight of the total 105 units of ECL, four of the 78 BCCL units, three of the 65 CCL units, three of the 10 NCL units, one of the 70 WCL units, three of the 91 SECL units and seven of the eight NEC units were operational on Monday. On the other hand, all the 27 units of MCL were closed, while strike was successful at CIL and CMPDI offices, too.
“If the company can pay a dividend of 39 per cent to its shareholders, why can’t the workers get their share of the pie,” said Dilip Guha Majumder, a senior Indian National Trade Union Congress leader. According to the management, the unions earlier demanded Rs 50,000 bonus to each worker, which they scaled down to approximately Rs 23,000 each.
The company’s stocks closed 1.68 per cent higher at Rs 342.90 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
