About 35,000 SAIL, RINL, NMDC workers boycott work on 2nd day of strike

About 35,000 workers of state-owned SAIL, RINL and NMDC continued to boycott work on Tuesday as part the nationwide strike, affecting production at steel plants and mines.

Rajesh Sandhu, Secretary of NMDC Sanyukt Khadaan Mazdoor Sangh said all non-executive workers have boycotted work to join the nationwide strike which entered its second day on Tuesday.

"Intensifying their protest against government polices, NMDC workers stopped state transport buses in Chhattisgarh for about 6 hours from 5 a.m," Sandhu said adding NMDC would incur a loss of about Rs 200 crore due to the protest.

Over 10,000 non-executive employees of the company are observing the protest at NMDC mines and offices in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana.

J Ayodhya Ram, President of Steel Plant Employees Union (CITU) said workers at RINL plant in Visakhapatnam did not come to work on Tuesday as well.

Around 8,000 non-executive Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) workers out of 11,000 are taking part in the ongoing nationwide strike called by central trade unions.

He further said production has been affected at the unit as only one furnace out of three is functional at the plant in Visakhapatnam. One was already under maintenance, the second one has been shut down as a precautionary measure.

Around 15,000 workers of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) also remained away from work at its plants in Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal, an employee of SAIL's Bhilai Steel Plant said.

The workers working at key functional areas of the plants did not come on Tuesday to work, he said.

As many as 10 central trade unions on Monday began a two-day nationwide strike to protest against the government's alleged wrong policies that are affecting farmers, workers and the general public.

The strike notices have been given by the unions in various sectors, such as coal, steel, oil, telecom, postal, income tax, copper, banks, and insurance.

SAIL and RINL are steel making companies under the Ministry of Steel. NMDC is the country's largest iron ore mining company under the ministry.