Workers at Jaypee Cement’s plant in Bagga, Himachal Pradesh, have sought the Labour Minister’s intervention on wage revision and registration of union.
In a letter to Labour Minister, Sis Ram Ola, Rajya Sabha MP and general secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), Tapan Sen, alleged that the workers were being made to shuttle between the State and Central labour departments.
“You are aware, that for cement industry, the Central Government is the appropriate authority and as such the last cement wage board settlement had been finalised at the level of Chief Labour Commissioner (Central) only,” Sen had said in the letter last week, seeking Central intervention.
Sen had urged the Minister to direct the Regional Labour Commissioner’s Office to intervene and conciliate on the demands of the Bagga plant workers as well as other problems of cement workers in the interests of harmonious industrial climate in the State.
Earlier in the month, workers of the plant at a press conference in Shimla had said that the Bagga cement plant union had not been registered even after applying for more than six months and in spite of “900 workers having paraded themselves before the labour commissioner office along with their identity cards on September 17 this year for their physical verification.”