Railwaymen's union to hold strike ballot on Dec 20-21

Move made to make govt accept a 36 point charter put forward by the Federation

The All India Railwaymen’s Federation has said a strike ballot will be conducted among Indian Railways employees, as a preliminary step towards an indefinite strike to force the government to accept the federation’s 36 demands.

The strike ballot would be held on December 20-21 across the country.

According to norms, the organisation has to go for a ballot before giving the government a notice for an indefinite strike.

To go ahead with the indefinite strike, at least 80 per cent of the employees should participate in the ballot and the union should secure the approval of 66.9 per cent.

While the staff strength of the Indian Railways is 1,460,000, the AIRF claims to have the backing of 1,170,000 members.

“We have been in discussions with the government and so far, it has agreed to set up the Seventh Pay Commission, in a demand related to promotion. For the rest of the 36 demands, we are planning to ahead with the strike,” said N Kanniah, working president, AIRF, and general-secretary of the Southern Railway Mazdoor Union.

The results of the ballot will be announced on December 22 or 23. If the Centre didn’t agree to implement the demands in full even after that, AIRF would conduct a meeting by February 2014 and announce the date to commence the indefinite strike, Kanniah said. He added if a strike took place, it would affect the people and the economy. Currently, the railways transports about 20 million passengers and 14,00,000 tonnes of goods every day, say AIRF officials.

Kanniah said the last such indefinite strike was held in 1974, adding at that time, a settlement was reached only after 26 days.

AIRF’s charter of demands includes filling up vacant posts, sanctioning additional posts, in accordance with the increase in the number of trains and workload and providing all railway staff pension and the family pension scheme available to the staff appointed before January 1, 2004. It also seeks jobs for the wards of employees opting for voluntary retirement, based on the educational qualification of the wards.

The organisation has demanded the implementation of a guaranteed pension scheme for employees, the removal of all anomalies of the Sixth Pay Commission, as agreed upon at a meeting of the departmental anomaly committee and the resolution of all issues pending before the anomaly committee. It has also sought a fixed quota for the wards of railway staff in recruitments through the Railway Recruitment Board and the Railway Recruitment Cell.