GACL workers strike work for 3 hours
Contractual and temporary workers at Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals Limited (GACL) on Monday striked work for 2-3 hours in a bid to seek wage revision and better safety measures at the company's plants in Ranoli near Vadodara and Dahej near Bharuch. About 800-odd contractual workers, which form two-third of the state PSU's over 3,000 workforce, resumed work by Monday afternoon.
"We had gone on strike for few hours before resuming work. This was a token strike in order to make the management understand that they should talk it out with the workers regarding their demands. Not only should the contractual workers be given reasonable wages, similar to those give to permanent workers but also safety measures should be enhanced," said Ashim Roy, president, Chemical Mazdoor Panchayat, an unrecognised general union of contractual workers in Gujarat that has worker members from other PSUs like GSFC and GNFC.
According to Roy, the GACL management has been issued a 15 day notice to seek out discussion with the workers. "We want to give the management enough time to discuss out the issues but if they don't sit and talk soon, we might go for an extended strike in near future," said Roy.
However, GACL denied any knowledge of the workers' demands. "It was an unscheduled agitation for an hour or two and were back on work and not a strike. However, the management is not aware about their demands as yet," said a company spokesperson.
At current wages of Rs 4,500 per month, the contractual and non-permanent workers claim that the same are much lower than that of the permanent workers at GACL plants. Moreover, the workers claim that despite majority of contractual workers working in the main plant, safety measures have not been equivalent for permanent and non-permanent workers in favour of the former.
"Many of these temporary workers have been working at GACL since over a decade now. However, they don't enjoy safety measures at GACL plants which the permanent workers do," Roy added.
Meanwhile, the workers had also approached the local labour commissioner's office in Vadodara. "The contractual workers have been putting forth their demand since sometime now. We are confident that the management and workers will sit and sort out the issue in near future," said KO Shah, deputy labour commissioner of Vadodara.