23 Monday Dec 2013
Posted in BSNL News
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The First Meeting after the VI Membership Verification and grant of recognition to both BSNLEU and NFTE was held today, 24th December 2013. The discussion was cordial and the issues were thoroughly discussed. Since all the items could not be discussed due to paucity of time, the pending items will be discussed in next meeting which will be held by first week of April 2014.
For the details of discussion, kindly visit bsnleuchq.com, the website of BSNLEU.
22 Sunday Dec 2013
Posted in PSU
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I am giving below a report on the sale of the recently purchased Dreamliner Planes by the Air India to mop up funds and then to lease it for its own use. Is it a profitable Option? May be.
MUMBAI, DEC 22:
National carrier Air India plans to raise up to $ 840 million by way of sale of its seven Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner planes, which it will then leaseback, to pay off the bridge loans taken against these aircraft.
A part of the proceeds will also be used for operational requirements, sources said here.
The carrier has already taken the delivery of 11 Dreamliners and three more are expected to join the fleet by March of next year.
“We have put seven Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner planes for sale and leaseback to mop up funds,” AI sources told PTI here.
“We expect to raise funds to the tune of $770-840 million as the airline is likely to get around $110-120 million per plane,” they said.
The funds raised will be used to pay off the bridge loans taken against these planes, they said, adding that, “the remaining (proceeds) will be used for operational requirements of the company“. (Business Line)
22 Sunday Dec 2013
Posted in BSNL News
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The Staff Side of the National Council had a whole day session on 22nd December 2013, in preparation for the meeting of the National Council Meeting going to be held on 23rd instant.
Com.Islam Ahmad, Leader Staff Side presided and Com.P.Abhimanyu,Secretary Staff Side presented the issues to be discussed and other connected matters. it was a lively discussion. Both the recognised unions decided to have maximum co-ordination for settlement of the important issues.
22 Sunday Dec 2013
Posted in General
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AAP is all ready to form the government on the basis of the good response it got from the public meetings conducted during the last one week. Who will be the Chief Minister? Kejriwal or somebody else? It is yet to be decided, it seems.
21 Saturday Dec 2013
Posted in TU News - India
It is reported that the meeting of the EPFO scheduled to be held on 14th January 2013 is expected to announce the interest rate for EPF for 2013-14. The interest for 2011-12 was 8.25% and for 2012-13 it was 8.50%. The Central Trade Unions have been demanding to increase the rate from 8.5%. It is also reported that there is justification for the increase.
21 Saturday Dec 2013
Posted in General
Kolkata, Dec 21 (PTI) Attacking the Centre over rising prices of fuel, CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat today said it was pushing up the prices of vegetables and food items though there was no dearth in production.
“Diesel prices are being hiked by 50 paise every month. The price of petrol was increased by 41 paise a litre yesterday. Increase in fuel prices is pushing up the prices of essential commodities,” Karat told a party rally at Barrackpore near here.
Criticising central policies for the price hike, he laid the blame on futures trading and the Centre allegedly batting for big business.
“The runaway food and vegetable prices have pushed up wholesale inflation,” he said. (PTI)
21 Saturday Dec 2013
Posted in BSNLEU
The period between 15th December and 15th January and also 15th June to 15th July every year is the time when new members are got enrolled and submitted to the BSNL Management for the purpose of deduction of membership from the salary of the official and remitted to the union. This practice has been going through the last 11 years, after the Membership Verification in BSNL has started 11 years back.
The deduction of subscription was only limited to the recognised union at the initial stage. Later on the demand of certain unions, the then Communications Minister directed that deduction be done in the case of all applicant unions. So, at present all the 18 applicant unions in the VI Membership Verification are granted the facility of deduction of membership from the salary.
When only the recognised union was allowed this facility, there was undue compulsion on the workers to subscribe to it. The United Forum of BSNL Unions constituted under the initiative of BSNLEU and faced the membership verification together and got recognition from the II Verification in 2004, the deduction of membership of these unions were done through BSNLEU, which remitted the same to the concerned unions. However, there were a few disputes at the local levels between BSNLEU and its allies on the calculation of the membership, but they were smoothly settled at the all Indi level. Once the applicant unions were allowed the deduction from salary, this problem was settled.
The Membership of a Union and the votes it gets in the verification varies. Sometimes you get fewer votes than membership and sometimes more. It depends on so many factors, mainly on the performance of the concerned union. Another factor is the % of members who vote.
Increasing the membership is an important factor for each and every union. The one month period during June-July and December-January is maximum utilised by the unions for this purpose. BSNLEU is not different.
BSNLEU had a tradition of increasing its membership, even when the number of non-executives were being reduced through retirement and no recruitment. BSNLEU which had only about 60,000 members at the time of formation in 2001, gradually increased the membership to about 1,40,000 – 1,45,000 at its peak. But the drastic retirement of about 10,000 – 15,000 employees in every year for the last few years also saw a reduction in membership, which at present is about 1,00,000 to 1,10,000. The membership of all the unions has been reduced similarly.
BSNL Employees Union, whether it was recognised or not recognised, has done yeomen service to the cause of the workers all along. The Unions, which merged and formed BSNLEU after formation of BSNL, were the progressive section of workers, which fought against privatization of services, corporatisation and anti-worker policies of the government. The struggles organised under the National Action Committee in the 1990s were historic. While the then recognised unions, NFTE and FNTO, compromised with the DoT on many issues, including restructuring, reduction of staff, ban on recruitment etc. the correct trade union path was displayed by the NAC.
After the formation of BSNL, BSNLEU took a pivotal role and ensured a beneficial wage conversion from the CDA to IDA w.e.f. from 01-10-2000. After getting recognition from 2004 onwards, BSNLEU through discussion and also struggles settled a list of long pending demands. The Wage Revision Agreement from 01-01-2007 was a record itself, which benefitted the workers in a big way and brought the pay scales to equal or more than many profit making PSUs. The NEPP, ensuring 4 time bound promotions to every non-executives in their service, was another historical achievement. The achievement of BSNLEU and United Forum is well known to the workers and need no elaboration at this stage.
Of course, there are still many urgent problems to be settled like the stagnation of pay, reduction of pay to those appointed after 01-01-2007, retirement / pension benefits of BSNL appointed employees, wage revision anomalies etc. The recent notice for strike by BSNLEU and the resultant negotiation has opened the door for the settlement of some of these issues. Maximum effort is being made by BSNLEU for early settlement of these.
The sustained struggle under the Joint Action Committee, Joint Forum/Forum of BSNL Unions Associations against privatisation, disinvestment, VRS and also for strengthening BSNL and improving its services have been appreciated by not only BSNL workers, but workers in other PSUs also. BSNLEU can take pride that it has taken a pivotal role in forming the JAC as also in the sustained struggles.`
BSNLEU is approaching the workers with these achievements made already and the demands it has put forward for settlement. Leaders and workers of BSNLEU at all levels have to take the Membership Campaign in a serious way and meet all the workers and try to get more and more membership. We have to remember that a strong and united organization alone can bring benefits to the workers.
Let us make the Membership Campaign a great success! BSNLEU Zindabad!
20 Friday Dec 2013
Posted in General
“A political alternative to the two main political formations – Congress and BJP – who compete with each other in excelling the levels of corruption, is required to cleanse our society from this morass of fast declining political morality.” (Com. Sitaram Yechury in ‘People’s Democracy’) – How true!
20 Friday Dec 2013
Posted in Uncategorized
The first meeting of the National Council after the VI Membership Verification in BSNL, is scheduled to be held on 23rd December 2013. This NC Meeting is being held under a new situation where two recognised unions are present, instead of one, which was the situation in all the earlier meetings. On the initiative of the lone recognised union, BSNLEU, this verification was conducted for grant of recognition to two unions, which get more than 15%. As such, BSNLEU and NFTE have been recognised as the First and Second Recognised unions. The number of members from BSNLEU will be 9, while for NFTE it will be 5, with a total of 14 members from the Staff Side. But, all the officials nominated by BSNLEU have not been accepted by the Management. While 5 are accepted, the other 4, nominated from unions other than BSNLEU (allies) have not been accepted. In the same way, only 10 items from the 17 items submitted by the staff side are included in the agenda. Another arbitrary decision of the management was that, instead of election by the staff side, the Leader and Secretary of Staff Side was allotted to NFTE and BSNLEU by BSNL Management.
In these circumstances, to make the NC Meeting successful and also to restore the NC as effective negotiating machinery, the following requirements are important and should be implemented:
1. The Chairman of the National Council should be the CMD BSNL and all full time Directors of BSNL should be the members of the Council to enable decisions to be taken on the spot. Both in the National Council of Central Government Employees and Departmental Council in DOT, Cabinet Secretary and Secretary DOT are/were Chairman respectively. All Departmental Secretaries are members of the National Council mentioned earlier and all the members of the Telecom Commission were members in the Departmental Council. The same system should be introduced in BSNL.
2. The members to the National Council, nominated by the recognised union/s should be accepted without considering the point whether he/she belongs to the particular recognised union or not. The recognised union/s represents all the workers and decisions taken in the Council are binding on all the employees. As such the unnecessary condition that only the members of the recognised union/s should be nominated should be dropped. From the inception of NC in BSNL in 2003, the recognised union was allowed to nominate members from other unions. This should be continued.
3. The condition and convention in the National Councils and Departmental Councils in government is that the Leader and Secretary of the Staff Side will be elected democratically by the Staff Side itself. The arbitrary condition that the Leader will be from NFTE and Secretary from BSNLEU is not acceptable. The earlier system should be restored so that the Staff Side will elect its Leader and Secretary through democratic process.
4. The Ratio between the First and Second Recognised Union should reflect in all the committees wherever staff Side is represented. Accordingly, the ratio should be 9:5 ie. 2:1
5. The items submitted by the Staff Side for discussion in the National Council should not be dropped by the Management arbitrarily. In case the Management feels that the number of items is very many, it can discuss with the Staff Side and find a way out.
6. The Official Side as well as the Staff Side is expected to be fully prepared for fruitful discussion and decision. The items are submitted one month earlier and hence there will be sufficient time for preparation. If a note by the Official Side is prepared and furnished to the Staff Side regarding the position of the Management on each item, the time for discussion can be reduced and decisions could be taken without lengthy discussion. This is the system adopted in many committee meetings, which will save time and energy.
7. Committee meetings should be held regularly ie. once in three months. The date of the next meeting can be decided in the National Council meeting itself, so that the convenience and availability of all can be ensured.
8. The Standing Committee meetings used to be held once in a month. Both the Management and Unions have now agreed that in can be held once in two months. These bi-monthly meetings should be held regularly and action taken report furnished.
9. The number of members of the Staff Side at present is 14. This is very less comparing to the large number of workers, categories, pan India presence and other connected matters. After thorough discussion earlier, the number was increased from 14 to 15 with the management open for further discussion. But unfortunately now it has been reduced to 14. This is to be increased to 20.
10. Once the meeting is over, there should not be much delay to issue the official minutes. At the maximum, the Minutes should be issued within 15 days. This will enable the Staff Side to submit the agenda for the next meeting at an early date which will suit the official side also.
11. And of course, it should be the objective of the meetings to settle maximum issues at the earliest for which both the Official Side and the Staff Side should co-operate.
……
20 Friday Dec 2013
Posted in BSNL News
It is understood that the meeting of the BSNL Board held yesterday, 19th December, has approved holding of Membership Verification for finding out the majority association/s of Executives in BSNL. The details are yet to be known.
So far the Associations were not recognised. However,facilities were extended to AIBSNLEA and SNEA.
