Employees of public sector undertakings can expect an interim relief pending revision of wages. However, the department of public enterprises has not yet decided whether the employees of loss making PSUs should be given interim relief.
The department had mooted the idea of keeping sick and loss making PSUs out of the wage revision process a couple of years back. But it could not implement the idea in view of resistance from trade unions. It has now made up its mind to refuse permission to sick PSUs to initiate the process of dialogue with plant unions for wage revision.
The department wants to ensure that interim relief is not paid to employees of sick units because it might make them eligible for wage revision. But it is already facing resistance from unions.
We are going to oppose any move to deny interim relief to employees of sick units. A lot of units have turned sick because of management problems or market conditions and employees should be made to bear the burnt, a trade union leader said.
The wage revision which takes place every four years was due on January 1 this year. The department is yet to initiate the process of negotiations for the next round of wage revision.
Central unions are working out charter of demands for different PSUs on the lines of salary revision granted to central government employees over and above the recommendations of the fifth pay commission.
This decision will have wide repercussions not only on the wage negotiations in PSUs but in the overall health of the PSUs, many of whom have more employees on their rolls that they need.
Several PSUs have stopped producing goods that have no market without shedding the number of their employees.
Some of the sick PSUs have not even implemented the last wage revision which came to effect from 1993 due to paucity of funds. In some PSUs, the unions are more concerned about saving jobs than revision of wages.
These units are under constant threats of closure and we are often forced to co-operate with the management to keep the plants going, RA Mital, secretary of All India Trade Union Congress, said.
