In good news and big relief to its employees, Coal India subsidiary Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL) has withdrawn a notice of eight-day wage cuts levied on those who took part in a three-day strike on 2 July protesting against commercial mining. The MCL spokesperson stated that the notice had been withdrawn after the trade unions had agreed to make up for the production shortfall during the strike, as per the PTI report. Following the growth, the planned strike called for by the trade unions on 24 July was also called off.
Four trade unions – AITUC, HMS, BMS and INTUC – jointly informed the management of the Odisha-based subsidiary of the Maharatna PSU of a day’s strike in protest against the decision to slash salaries for employees who had engaged in a three-day national cessation of work earlier this month.
A tripartite meeting was called by the Bhubaneswar Labor Commissioner’s office on 23 July to resolve the planned strike of 24 July.
“It is noted that the employees of Lakhanpur OCP, Belpahar OCM, Lillari OCP and GM office of Lakhanpur area have participated in this illegal strike which is violation of rule 26.10 of the certified standing orders of MCL. In view of this misconduct on their part, eight days wage deduction as per Section 20 of the Code on Wages Act 2019, is hereby ordered for their act of participation in the illegal strike,” the MCL had said in a wage cut notice dated July 3. While OCP refers to an open cast project, OCM denotes open cast mine.
It was the second time that a wage-cut order had been issued for a protest. The first instance of this order was in 2010 when a part of the workers went on a day’s strike.
Some of the 20,000 mine employees did not return to work during the work stoppage on July 3.
