I feel that 2014, should be declared as the Year of the Casual and Contract Workers in BSNL.
This is the 14th Year after BSNL was formed in 2000. BSNL has grown, it has gone down. Now the workers and the management are trying to bring it up again, though it is not an easy task. Hard work, determination, dedication and commitment are required for the same. The governments’ anti-PSU and neo-liberal policies also has to be changed.The entire working class is on struggle to change the wrong policies of the government as has been seen through the 48 hours strike on 20-21 February 2013 and the massive Parliament March on 12th December 2013.
These 14 years, have seen the improvement for the employees in BSNL through two good wage revisions, NEPP and various other measures. Of course, there are still many issues to be settled.The BSNLEU and other organisations in BSNL are fully capable of sustained struggles to achieve the demands. Once BSNL is strengthened and a better service to the customers are ensured, it will not be a difficult task to settle the issue of the regular employees.
But what about the casual and contract workers numbering about one lakh engaged in DOT/BSNL for years and decades? They are being inhumanly exploited by the contractor and in cases by the BSNL management. Casual / contract workers have got two types of problems, unlike regular employees. While the orders and decisions of the government and BSNL generally implemented for the regular employees, though belated some times, in the case of casual and contract workers, mostly they are not implemented, but violated.
These include the payment of minimum wages, non-implementation of social security measures like EPF, ESI etc. Secondly the workers have got long pending demands like regularisation of TSM/Casual workers, improvement of the wages/service conditions etc. Retrenchment has also become a serious problem.
It is a shame to the BSNL as also the regular workers in BSNL, that these inhuman exploitation are continuing in this PSU. Of course, some improvement has taken place in the last few years, after the formation of BSNL Casual and Contract Workers Federation and the sustained struggles with the full support of the BSNL Employees Union, the biggest and recognised union in BSNL.But the exploitation continues. There should be an end to it.
One of the major demands of the Central Trade Unions focussed in the agitations/strikes for the last few years is the payment of Rs. 10,000 as the lowest minimum wage for the unorganised workers and improvement of social security measures, including pension. The unorganised workers, including in the organised sector are more than 92% of the total workers in the country and their issues can not be forgotten by any trade union worth its name.
The Central Executive Committee of the BSNLCCWF is scheduled to be held at Bhubaneshwar on 18-19 of January 2014. The issues of the casual and contract will be seriously discussed, the struggles reviewed, and future programmes for strengthening the organisation and struggles to achieve the long pending and fully justified demands will be planned.
In this connection, I feel that this year 2014 should be a year of struggles and agitations by not only the casual and contract workers alone, but a struggle of the regular workers also to improve the condition of these exploited workers. It would be only proper and appropriate that the year 2014 be declared as the Year of the Casual and Contract Workers in BSNL by the CEC with concrete plans to ensure implementation of existing rules and achievement of better prospects for the workers.