BSNL EMPLOYEES UNION – ALL INDIA CONFERENCES.

10th All India Conference of BSNL Employees Union is scheduled to be held at Guwahati from 2nd to 4th April 2022.

BSNLEU was formed on 22nd March 2001 at the the All India Convention held at Visakhapatnam, which is treated as the First Conference of the Union. Nine All India Conferences have been held so far including the foundation conference. A brief report of these conferences are given below for information.

  1. Formation Conference of BSNLEU at Visakhapatnam

Consequent to formation of BSNL in October 2000, recognition granted to all the Unions and Federations earlier were cancelled. Management stipulated that instead of the existing unions formed on the basis of government rules, new unions as per Trade Union Act should be formed and registered with Trade Union Registrar.

While separate unions for Officers, Class III and Class IV Employees existed earlier, now unions in the PSU will be for Executives and Non-executives. E.III (N) Union took initiative and consulted some of the Class III and IV unions for formation of a united Non-executive Union.

Following unions agreed to form a joint non-executive union in BSNL:

1.All India Telecom Employees Union Class III (N) Union : General Secretary – V.A.N.Namboodiri

 2. All India Telecom Traffic Class III Union : General Secretary – P.S.Raman Kutty

3. All India Telecom Administrative Union Class III & IV : General Secretary –  Pabitra Chakraborty

4. All India Civil Wing Employees Union : General Secretary – S.Killivalavan

5. Telecom Factory Industrial Workers Union : General Secretary – Sisir Bhattacharjee

6. Telecom Employees Union : General Secretary – V.Gopal &  Circle Unions of E.IV Union in Kerala, W.Bengal and Assam.

It is pertinent to note that all these unions had strongly protested against corporatisation of Telecom Department in to BSNL and organised sustained struggles, including strikes, against corporatisation under the banner of “Door Sanchar Sangharsh Samithi”, well knowing that corporatisation of telecom was the first step towards it’s privatisation.

 A Convention was decided to be held for formation of the new union. It was held at Visakhapatnam on 21-22 March 2001. Hundreds of delegates participated from the unions proposed to be merged in the union to be newly formed. In the presence of CITU All India President Com.E.Balanandan, NFPE General Secretary Com.K.Adinarayana, General Secretary AIIEA Com.N.M.Sundaram and other respected leaders, BSNL Employees Union (BSNLEU) was formed on 22nd March 2001. It was significant that the date coincided with the death anniversary of the great working class leader Com.A.K.Gopalan, who always was the guide and well-wisher of P and T unions. Office-bearers with J.N.Mishra as President, V.A.N.Namboodiri as General Secretary, P.S.Raman Kutty as Deputy General Secretary and J.S.Dahiya as Treasurer were elected unanimously with inclusion of leaders from all the participating unions. Comrades SisirBhattacharjee and Moni Bose were elected as Patrons. Thus BSNL Employees Union was born. It was a historic moment for the telecom workers.

Workers enthusiastically welcomed formation of BSNLEU. Circle, District and Branch Unions were formed by holding conventions of all merged unions at concerned level in a short period and electing office-bearers unanimously.