Coal India Limited (CIL) and five central trade unions arrived on a settlement on wage board revision for five lakh strong workers engaged in various CIL mines in the country at the Joint Bipartite Committee for Coal Industry(JBCCI) in Hyderabad on Sunday.
Following the agreement the three- day nationwide strike called by these coal trade unions from January 5 have been withdrawn, according to Surendra Kumar Pandey, a JBCCI member and general secretary of Akhil Bharataiya Khadan majdoor Sangh affiliated to Bharatiya majdoor Sangh(BMS).
Pandey said, according to the agreement a category -1 majdoor of CIL will get minimum basic wage of Rs 8,360, a 49.49 per cent increase over the last wage agreement. During the last agreement the minimum basic wage of these workers was at Rs 5,550. It was also agreed that rate of annual increment shall be fixed at three per cent of progressive basic wage in each category or grade.
Service linked weight age amount equivalent to one increment shall be payable to those non-executives retiring from services from the following month of timing the agreement till the operative period of this new wage agreement called National Coal Wage Agreement -8 (NCWA).
It was also agreed that the underground allowances would be payable at the rate of 12.5 per cent of revised basic wage instead of earlier ten per cent. Pandey said, the minimum guaranteed benefit of the worker shall be at the rate 24 per cent of total wage drawn as on 30 June 2006.Ten per cent attendance bonus of the basic will continue as before.
Regarding other fringe benefits of the workers a subcommittee has been formed taking the members from the management and trade unions which will submit its report to JBCCI at its next meeting at New Delhi on Januray 23 and 24. The new wage board will be operative till 30 June 2011. The due for the next wage board will be from the next day, A,Srinibash Rao , another JBCCI member told.
Earlier at Bhubaneswar JBCCI meeting recently, CIL has agreed to maintain the periodicity of the wage board duration for five years and accepted another demand pertaining to one hundred per cent DA neutralization.
