Staff demands hit CIL talks

No agreement could be reached between the management of Coal India Ltd (CIL), the world’s largest coal miner, and workers over the issue of wage rise in Friday’s meeting.

While the two sides have agreed on increasing wages of workers by a fourth, talks collapsed amid demands of additional perks and benefits by workers in the fifth round.

“No agreement could be signed in Friday’s meeting of the wage negotiation committee because of additional demands,” a senior CIL official said. Wages for workers are revised every five years after multiple rounds of discussion in a joint bipartite consultative committee (JBC). The new wage agreement has to come into effect from July 1, 2011.

“The trade unions demanded giving five per cent of basic salary as mine allowance to workers. The management had offered only two per cent,” Jibon Roy, general secretary of All India Coal Workers Federation (AICWF), affiliated to left-backed Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU) told Business Standard. Executive employees get 15 per cent as mine allowance.

The state-owned miner is the largest listed employer with a total employee strength of 3,83,000 comprising 3,63,000 workers and 20,000 executives. In addition, 2,00,000 workers are employed on contract. The trade unions have also demanded increasing post-retirement benefits to 30 per cent of the basic salary against 21 per cent available now for workers, Roy said. The workers’ unions had agreed on a 25 per cent rise in wages earlier this month. This would translate to an additional annual outgo of Rs 4,000 crore.

The coal miner had increased wages by 24 per cent last time, which had an impact of Rs 2,500 crore for the company. This time, CIL had offered a rise of 10 per cent when the talks started while workers’ unions were demanding a 50 per cent rise.

The talks were held among Congress-backed Indian National Trade Union Congress, CITU, Hind Mazdoor Sabha, BJP-backed Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and the management of CIL and Singareni collieries.

CIL’s shares closed down 0.6 per cent at Rs 340.5 at Bombay Stock Exchange on Friday.