06 Monday Jun 2011
Posted in BSNL News, TU News - Telecom specific
The JAC meeting held on 6th June 2011 has finalised certain proposals with regard to the National Telecom Pilcy 2011 (NTP 2011) to be submitted to the Communications Minister. The full text will be available in the unions’ websites.
31 Tuesday May 2011
Posted in BSNL News
Since 2007, the BSNL has been cancelling mobile tenders one after another resulting in shortage of equipments to provide to the much needed customers. In 2007 the Minister directed to cancel the 45 million lines tender which the BSNL Board implemented loyally stopping the PSU from moving forward in the mobile sector. In 2010, the much publicised 95 million lines mega tender was cancelled after two years of court cases etc. Both these cancellations resulted the BSNL mobile market share going down to 12% and to the 4th position. In the 1-2 December 2010 strike agreement it was assured by the Minister that 5.5million lines will be made availble immediately and another tender for 15 million will be floated.
Now it is reported that the BSNL has decided to cancel the 5.5 million tender which is almost finalised. Assurance is given that 15 million lines tender will be floated. This is the third consecutive time that the tenders are cancelled. The 15 million tender is also being floated to cancel at the last minute.
The government is completely under the spell of the private telcos. It only wants to ensure that BSNL become weak so that the private companies can reap profit and grow. The simillarity with how Air India was destabilised is before us. The Govt. wants BSNL to have the same fate as Air India.
The workers and the JAC has to immediately move to ensure that the 5.5million lines are made available.
08 Friday Apr 2011
Posted in BSNL News
Joint Action Committee of BSNL Associations/Unions after its meeting today has issued circular calling upon all employees to observe 1st to 31st May 2011 as “Customer Delight Month” in an effort to improve the customer service as also to ensure that the company is strengthened financially from its present deteriorating position. JAC has discussed these issues with the management and demanded that it should ensure all initiative and help in making the programme successful, which has been agreed.
The copy of the circular is put in the BSNLEU website : http://www.bsnleuchq.com
22 Tuesday Mar 2011
The Central Executive Committee meeting of the BSNLE Employees Union started today at Chennai. This CEC is being held on the 10th anniversary of the organisation which was founded on 22nd March 2001.
The CEC celebrated the 10th Anniversary as also the Himalayan victory of BSNLEU in the fifth memberhip verification. The CEC was inaugurated by Com. A.K.Padmanabhan, President, CITU.
In the afternoon a seminar of BSNL future was organised which among others were addressed by Com.Amanulla Khan, President, AIIEA and Shri A.Subramaniam, CGM Chennai. ( Detailed report will be put on CHQ website)
18 Friday Mar 2011
There is drastic reduction in the work force of the BSNL year after year. Workers are retiring but hardly there is any new recruitment. An examination of the following official statistics corroborate the same:
2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010
1. Executives 58407 56016 55432
2. Non-Executives 249679 243824 236668
3. Total 308086 299840 292100
There is a total reduction of 15986 staff within 2 years from 2007-08 to 2009-10. Executives have been reduced by 2975 while non-executives reduced by 13011. In 2010-11 also there is a similar reduction.
The question of recruitment of staff has to be taken as an important agenda by the unions.
17 Thursday Mar 2011
Tags
Four contract workers in BSNL have been arrested and put in custody/jail for going on agitation protesting against retrenchment and reduction of working hours. After the issue of minimum wages and social security benefits were taken in the Parliament Standing Committee on Labour by the union and as a result the BSNL managment has issued strict instructions to implement the same, the local level management in many places in connivance with the contractors have started retrenching the contract workers. This is being resisted by BSNLEU and BSNL Casual & Contract Workers Union. Agitations are taking place in many SSAs against these attacks on the contract workers. At Bongaigaon (Assam) also, such an agitation was going on for some days. Now the contractors and management in conspiracy has filed false complaints against the agitating workers and got four of them arrested and kept in custody/ jail.
As President of BSNLEU as also BSNL C&CWF, I have taken up the matter with the BSNL management as also written letter to the Sr.GM (Admn) who is in charge of the contract workers issues.
If the issues are not settled, there is no other way but to intensify the struggle.
08 Tuesday Mar 2011
Posted in BSNL News, Politics India, Uncategorized
The Ministry of Home Affairs have asked DOT to ensure that all telecom services by the telecom companies are made accessible to the Government on security concerns.
The issue first started with Blackberry services which is provided by the Research in Motion (RIM), a company based in Canada. Despite continuous directions, RIM had not given the Government of India access to Enterprise Server (BES), although after much efforts it gave access in the case of Blackberry Messenger Services (BMS) and Blackberry Internet Services (BIS). The government gave many warnings and ultimate dates, but the company did not implement the directions.
It is in this context that Ministry of Home Affairs have now asked the DOT to issue notices to all telecom companies to provide access to government for all telecom services by March 2001.
Even if this last date is not complied with by the telecom companies, their licenses should be cancelled and huge penalty imposed on them. But it is doubtful, because the Government would not like to antagonise the big business and MNCs;
06 Sunday Mar 2011
Posted in BSNL News
BSNL is in the red as per the report of the BSNL Management. It was not so when it was formed in October 2000. It had a cash balance of Rs.35,000 crore in the Banks and it was posting profit of Rs.5000 to Rs. 10000 crore in the first 6/7 years. What happened now due to which the BSNL is in the red.
The first reason is the wrong and anti-PSU policy of the Central Government. While in the 1950s to 1970s it was the policy of the Government to form more and more PSUs and convert loss making and inefficient private companies to PSUs as in the case of LIC, Banks, Oil companies etc., the neo-liberal policies initiated by the Government in the 1990s has turned every thing on the opposite direction. Now government department like Telecom has been converted to PSUs – VSNL, MTNL and BSNL. The next steps are disinvestment and privatisation. VSNL is already privatised, MTNL is disinvested to the tune of 45% and government is on the way to disinvest BSNL, which has not been done only due to the strong oposition from the trade unions. The government is continuing with its plan of weakening BSNL so that it gets justification for privatisation – handing over this mega telecom PSU to private companies.
What is the role of the management ? Whether it is strengthening BSNL or weakening? There is no doubt it was not a positive role since the viability of the company has gone down. It was only the BSNL Board, which had taken decision to cancel both the tenders of 45 million as well as 95 million mobile equipments. Corruption has become rampant at the top level. Target fixed are not completed. Wasteful expenditure had become the practise.
What about executives and non-executives. They have protested against the above and could achieve something. But not sufficient enough to make the situation better. Much more is to be done by the workers.
A complete overhaul has become necessary at the top level, including the change in the policy. An Alternative Telecom Policy has become the imperative. Instead of only blame-game, joint team work with clear targets and strategy have to be adopted and implemented. The workers have to take the lead for this overhaul with the support of the people.
03 Thursday Mar 2011
Posted in BSNL News, Uncategorized
VI Central Pay Commission has recommended two years ‘Child Care Leave’ for women employees and the same has been implemented by the Central Government with certain conditions. But despite strong demand from the BSNL Employees Union, the BSNL management has so far denied implementation of the same in BSNL. This is completely an anti-women stand of the management. On the one hand the management says that there are surplus staff and is again and again proposing VRS, but when it comes to grant of Child Care Leave, it says that it can not be given due to shortage of staff. Interesting!
The management should stop this anti-worker, anti-women stand. The International Womens Day falls on 8th March 2011. It is an opportunity for the BSNL management to correct its stand and extend this right to the thousands of young women in the BSNL.
03 Thursday Mar 2011
Posted in BSNL News
The UPA government is once again on the wrong move. If the reports in the press are correct, the Govenment is trying to let off the private telecom companies, which has violated the rules of the country and cheated the exchecquer to go scotfree, by imposing a small pentalty of some few crores.
Violations of rules and regulations have been the regular feature in the telcom sector, especially by the private telecom operators. They make profit of thousands of crores of rupees through manipulation of rules, getting ineligible benefits, cheating the government and so on. When these issues are brought to the notice of the DOT or the Governement, after dilly-dallying for a long time and giving chance for the offenders to cover up their misdeeds, a small penalty is imposed to mislead the public.
This happened earlier in the case of Reliance and other companies. Now the DOT is proposing another such escape route for the private companies. The Times of India dated 3rd March has reported that instead of imposing a penalty to the tune of Rs. three thousand crore for multiple penalties to the various companies which violated the rules, only Rs.28.5 crore penalty is being proposed by the DOT. If this is correct, the Government is once again salvaging the private telcos which has to be opposed and exposed.
Had not the government learnt any lessons from the 2G scam and related matters?
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