The stand-off between the officials and the employees of the Neyveli Lignite Corporation has acquired serious overtones as the latter have decided to lay siege to the thermal power station-I on Tuesday.
The trade unions are not taking kindly to the executives and engineers having parted ways from them, in terms of going on an indefinite strike from last Wednesday night. The trade unions have taken the stand that the executives and the engineers should not have yielded to the pressure exerted by the NLC management.
District Secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress M. Sekar alleged that “since, the officials have fallen in line the management is now intimidating the workforce to give up the strike by threatening to deny them gate passes and to withdraw health benefits.”
Mr. Sekar said that if the executives and engineers ought to be on duty, they must adopt the “work to rule” strategy. In other words they should confine themselves only to the tasks assigned to them.
General Secretary of the NLC Graduate Engineers Association K. Radhakrishna said, “So far so good as in the past four days of the strike there was no significant drop in electricity generation. This has earned the ire of the trade unions and prompted them to take a tough stand.”
Though the officials were keen on avoiding any sort of confrontation, of late, the turn of events had caused apprehensions among them. As of now, they were being escorted to the mines and the thermal power stations with police security.
But once the striking employees decide to lay siege to the power units to prevent the officials from getting on with their works there might be unavoidable confrontation. It has been the unwritten law that during strike period certain sections of the employees, including those engaged in the Groundwater Control System and the NLC general hospital, would be exempted.
The trade union leaders have already expressed their displeasure over the reason cited by the NLC management before the Madras High Court for getting a stay on the strike. The management had stated that if the strike takes place it would not create power crisis but the mines would also get flooded (as there would not be any staff to bail out the water), leading to serious consequences.
Therefore, the trade unions have decided to recall the employees serving in the Groundwater Control System. However, the official circles are not unduly perturbed by such a proposal because they feel that once inside the plant they would have to ensure that all sections work properly to give the regular output.
The power generation on Sunday was in the region of 2,200MW against the full capacity of 2,490MW. The difference is attributed to various factors such as overall maintenance of certain units, the usual fluctuations in the operation of machinery owing to mechanical problems.
Secretary of the Anna Workers and Staff Union Rama. Udayakumar said, “The trade unions have decided to file petitions before the High Court on Monday, seeking vacation of the stay.
- A.V. RAGUNATHAN
(Source:the hindu)
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