Five major Central trade unions yesterday opposed the government move to conduct a working class family income and expenditure survey for 1998-99 and objected to a pilot study already launched in this regard.
In a joint letter to labour minister M P Veerendra Kumar, Aituc, BMS, Citu, HMS and Intuc said the decision to undertake the exercise was taken unilaterally without any prior consultations with the trade unions.
They urged the minister to call a meeting of Central trade unions to discuss the question of conducting the new working class family income and expenditure survey.
The letter said though the index review committee appointed by government in 1977 recommended that before new studies are conducted, TUs should be consulted at every stage, the labour bureau has chosen to do it unilaterally.
They said the International Labour Organisation directive on labour statistics has also emphasised the need for consultation with trade unions to gain the confidence of the workers on the index collection machinery.
They alleged that several maladies have occurred in the collection of price data and compilation of index for 1981-82 series and said without properly correcting the 1981-82 series introduction of the new series is likely to depress the index.
It will also affect the conversion factor of the new series with the old series, the letter signed by K L Mahendra (Aituc), R Venugopal (BMS), M K Pandhe (Citu), R A Mittal (HMS) and Chandidas Sinha (Intuc) said.
