Strike hits maintenance work at Indian Oil Koyli plant

As many as 60 maintenance contractors at the Koyli-based Gujarat refinery of Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOC) have gone on an indefinite strike from Thursday morning.

The contractors have decided to withdraw their workers from the unit against IOC's stand on compensation to the victims' families, safety and other utilities.

The strike has hit the maintenance work at one of the crude refining unit. There are over 100 labour contractors working for IOC for maintenance and repairs.

The maintenance contractors decided to stay away from work following reports that IOC is planning to recover the compensation money from TMK Engineering, a labour contractor to pay the families of two victims of fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) explosion in Gujarat refinery last month.

Both the workers lost their lives in the explosion at IOC who were employees of TMK Engineering.

"The strike will not affect our production directly as the contract workers are mainly deputed for repairing and marinating jobs. The workers will compensate the pending work once contractors restart their operations. We are in talks with labour contractors and trying to sort out the issue," said D V Oak, deputy general manager, human resource, IOC.

Oak said: "We cannot say exactly how many workers did not turned up for work today as IOC awards job contracts not labour contracts. But as per rough estimates around 1,500-2,000 workers could not work today following the strike call by contractors."

The contractors are of the opinion that IOC should pay the entire compensation money as the workers have died due to the negligence of the company.

Earlier, IOC had agreed to pay Rs 4 lakh as compensation in case the contractor fails to pay the money.

"We want adequate safety measures in the plant. We also want IOC to pay compensation to the families of the victims in the blast as contractors are not responsible for any failure of the IOC management," said a contractor.

"The compensation should be paid by the primary employer and not by us as per the law of land. The secondary employer is liable to pay compensation only in case the primary employer does not pay. It is too early to comment on the issue of payment, as the death certificates have not come yet that is necessary to claim insurance for contractors," said Oak. The meeting with the representatives of contractors was on at the time of going to the press.