Trade union calls for strike against Coal India divestment

Major central trade unions are planning an agitation to oppose the Centre’s move to offload 10 per cent stake in government-owned Coal India Ltd (CIL).

Akhil Bharatiya Khan Mazdoor Sangh (ABKMS), a trade union affiliated to the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), has served notice for a strike in all CIL coal fields on September 24. ABKMS is the third largest coal trade union, having substantial presence in all coalfields in the country.

Another central trade union, the pro-CPM Centre of Indian Trade Unions, is likely to join in the proposed strike on September 24, said ABKMS general secretary Surendra Kumar Pandey. Consultations are on with the Indian national Trade Union Congress and the All India Trade Union Congress, he added.

Pandey said, “We are forced to take to the agitational path, as all other options like holding demonstrations before CIL offices across the country and talks failed to refrain the government from a disinvestment decision’’.

He said there is no justification of disinvestment of a profit-making PSU like CIL whose profit figures rise year after year. “It is all for making up the budgetary deficit of the Centre because the money raised from offloading of shares will go to the coffers of the central government, not to CIL,” he observed.

Adding: “Why should CIL money go to the government when the latter has stopped all sorts of financial support to the public sector from 1994?” His union, he said, would oppose the CIL disinvestment fully.