Protest by FCI employees union

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May18

Workers and staff members of the district food corporation here on Friday launched a strike against the Chairman and Managing Director of the Food Corporation of India (FCI).

The district committee of the Food Corporation of India Employees Association (FCIEA) protested by sporting black badges. The protest was conducted against the delay on part of the management and the Government of India for delaying the wage revision of the employees of the association.

On the very first day of the agitation, Manjit Singh, union senior additional general secretary of the FCIEA, said though the protest would remain peaceful, any inaction by the FCI would lead to a massive boycott by workers from June 15 to 22. Employees and officials of subordinate depots like Admapur, Kartarpur, Bhogpur, Nawanshahr, Banga, Shahkot, Nakodar, Phillaur also joined the protests.

Gurinder Singh, district chairman, said the government and the Food Secretary had been delaying the increment in the wages of the category III and IV employees for the past 17 months. However, the wage revision was scheduled to be done by January 1, 2017, hence they had to initiate this protest to force the authorities to start negotiation for wage revision of all employees.

Manjit said employees had been working overtime due to the shortage of staff, still the Chairman of the FCI wasn’t taking any response from the association and employees were suffering indirectly. Also, with the minimal staff present, they are restricted to work during the day and during the supplying of stock. The workers who are working for the past six or four years were paid Rs 20,000 monthly. In this regard, the association members were planning to organise the strike at the district headquarters in the coming week and would shun doing work overtime.