Mr. Ratan Tata, one of the biggest business tycoons in the country has crticised the biggest tycoon in the country, Mr. Mukesh Ambani for staying in a palatial 27 storey apartment, ‘Antilla’, at Mumbai. In an interview with ‘The Times’, the world famous daily, he is reported to have stated “It makes me wonder why some one would do that”. He also stated” The person who lives in there should be concerned about what he sees around him and ( asking) can he make a difference. If he is not, then it is sad because this country needs people to allocate some of their enormous wealth to finding out ways of mitigating the hardship that people have”.
Very interesting! Whether it is Tata, Ambanis or other big tycoons in the country, they have never cared for the ordinary people or the poor. Their only one target was to get more and more profits. I don’t say these people had not contributed any thing for the country. But it is not even 0 . 001 % of their profit. And even that was to get names for them or to avoid taxes or get concessions. Now one of them has started criticising the others. Well and good.
Will all these tycoons and big business people, including Tata have a self critical analysis of what they have done to the poor and the ordinary people? (based on a report in Economic Times 22-05-2011)

NFTE and FNTO are not participating in the meetings of the Joint Action Committee for some time past. NFTE and its allies have intimated that they will not be part of the JAC since there are some differences with BSNLEU. This is not logical since different unions will have different opinion on many matters and still they can come together on common issue of workers as in the case of the Central Trade Unions. FNTO has informed that they are not participating now, but they will implement the decision of the JAC based on issue to issue.
The three lakh BSNL workers as also the company itself is facing serious challenges and it is the time to jointly make all efforts for strengthening the organisation. There can not be any different opinion on the matter. In the same way no union can have any difference on the programme chalked out by the JAC to observe May month as ‘Customer Delight Month’ and ensure that BSNL is able to provide a better service and get the support of the people. But unfortunately NFTE has not come forward to work jointly. FNTO units in some places are joining with the common platform.
As Convener of the JAC I personally request these unions to come back to the JAC and work together for the common cause. It is the call of the time.

The leaders of the Joint Action Committee met Sri Garg, Director (HR), BSNL today, 20th May and discussed about the issues which had to be sorted out to improve the service and to strengthen BSNL. The suggestions given by the JAC were discussed and mostly agreed by the Director(HR). The details of the discussion will be published later.

Shri R.K.Upadhyay, newly appointed CMD BSNL has stated that he is working with MTNL officers to streamline their businesses and synergising the operations. This may be part of the preparation for a later merger of the two telecom PSUs.
Joint Action Committee of the BSNL Unions/Associations have already indicated its opinion on the issue of merger of BSNL-MTNL. While it welcomes the proposal, there are certain issues like disinvestment of MTNL etc. to sorted out.

The attack on the PSUs has been sharpened after the assembly elections. The UPA Government which could not divest any PSU during its first term due to the strong opposition of the Left Parties, without the support of which it could not continue in power and which could only start with some disinvestments only during its second tenure till now, has been emboldened by the recent elections to start the sale of family silver – the privatisation of the central PSEs.
It has started with the Cabinet taking a decision on 19th May to sell the Scooters India Limited which is in loss, of course due to the anti-PSU policy of the government. Instead of trying to make it financially viable, the Government has decided to sell to help the private companies in the sector. Scooters India Limited was started in 1972 and was producing three wheelers till the eighties in competition with the private companies.
There is no doubt that it will be sold cheap as in the case of Balco, CMC, Hindustan Zinc, HTL, IPCL, Jessop & company and VSNL which were privatised during the NDA regime.
The Trade Unions and the people of the country have to move immediately to ensure that this process of privatisation is stopped forthwith. Otherwise, there will be no PSUs left within some 10 to 15 years. The slogan of the NDA government that ‘Business is not the business of the Government’ will be fully implemented.

One year is over after the All India Conference of the BSNL Employees Union held at Thiruvananthapuram from 12th to 15th May 2010. That AIC was historic in all respects, including the disciplined manner in which it was conducted.
The growth of BSNLEU since its inception on 22nd March 2001 was truly reflected. The union which started with about 60,000 members has grown to be the biggest union in Telecom and reached a membership of 1,40,000. The Union had won in three consecutive membership verifications with huge majority. It had settled a good wage revision and Promotion Policy for the workers. Hundreds of important issues were settled. Workers had got confidence in BSNLEU.
Another important issue was the change of office-bearers. Com.V.A.N.Namboodiri, who is the founder General Secretary of the union and who continued till the Conference was elected as President and Com.P.Abhimanyu who was Asst. General Secretary and later Deputy General Secretary elected as General Secretary. Com.P.Asokababu who was Assistant General Secretary since inception was elected as Dy. General Secretary. Com. S.C.Bhattacharjee continued as Treasurer. It was a smooth change over. The decisions of the conference were also important.
After the Conference we have faced another Membership Verification in which also we won with good majority. The workers continue to support BSNLEU as they see in it their true friend and supporter.
This is the time to assess the situation and prepare for further advancement and strengthen the organisation.