SAIL, workers agree on new pay settlement

Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) has arrived at an agreement with workers’ representatives for revision of wages with retrospective effect, from January 1, 2007.

Under this five-year agreement, the employees are entitled to a guaranteed benefit at 21 per cent of the basic pay plus dearness allowance.

Following the revision, the basic pay and dearness allowance (DA) of the S1 grade of employees would go up from Rs 10,969 to Rs 14,320 and that of S4 grade employees from Rs 13,246 to Rs 17,290. Similarly, the basic pay and DA of S8 grade employees has been increased from Rs 17,921 to Rs 22,570 and that of S11 employees from Rs 21,413 to Rs 27,950.

The management has agreed to the demand of workers’ representatives to fix a uniform rate of increment at 3 per cent.

“This agreement of SAIL is one of the best in terms of benefits accruing to the workers, compared with the agreements arrived at other companies in the recent past like Coal India and Tata Steel. The benefit to the SAIL employees as a result works out to be 15 per cent higher than the wage settlement at Tata Steel,” said a SAIL release.

On issues pertaining to contract labour, SAIL has constituted a committee which is likely to meet shortly and address the issues.