Pics: Sphoorty Ullal
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore (SP)

Mangalore, Aug 19: Various unions of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) that have formed a common forum under the name, ‘United Forum of BSNL Unions’, are on a two-day strike commencing from Wednesday August 19.  The strike is called to impress upon the management to settle the pending issues of the employees like fitment benefit on par with top executives, five year periodicity for wage revision, annual increments at the rate of 5%, standardization of pay fixation on promotion, pensionary benefits, allowances and perks on par with executives etc., at an early date. The other demands of the unions are implementation of promotion policy, implementation of Anomaly Committee Report and putting an end to unfair labour practices.

The unions say that the assurances given on May 18 this year by the management through an agreement have not been implemented even after two months. Dakshina Kannada telecom district BSNL Employees Union president Com Surendran and district secretary Com Venugopal Nambiar informed through a press release, that the unions had organized a day's demonstration in front of the office of the general manager of the telecom district here on August 11. They said, that the BSNL management, which had quickly decided upon raising the pay scales of the executives of the company, has been dragging its feet in the matter of settling issues pertaining to employees. As the management has not come forward to settle issues amicably, the unions are forced to agitate to get the facilities that are rightfully due to them, they explained.