Urging the government to draw lessons after being "forced to withdraw" the EPFO amendments, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) on Wednesday said this could have been avoided had “proper consultations” been held with trade unions before taking any policy decision that impacts workers.

“The Government was not prepared to listen to the demands of the central trade unions and their representatives in the Central Board of Trustees of Employees Provident Fund Organisation, and had to withdraw it because of the struggles of workers in different parts of the country, including Bengaluru and Visakhapatnam,” CITU President AK Padmanabhan said in a statement.

Padmanabhan, who is a member of the CBT, accused the government of “trying to mislead by saying that the amendment on February 10 was done as per the suggestions of some trade unions.”

“In the March 29 meeting this year, all the trade union representatives demanded withdrawal of this notification or to give an option to the workers to withdraw their money or to continue to keep it in EPFO,” he said, adding that denial of full PF withdrawal creates “serious difficulties to the workers, particularly in situations where they do not have any job security and other statutory benefits, as in the case of the garment sector where huge unrest has erupted.”

Alleging that these changes were part of the government's policies aimed at "dismantling the EPF itself", Padmanabhan cited last year’s Budget proposal to “appropriate the so-called unclaimed money from EPFO while this year the government proposed to tax EPFO contributions”.

Related Topics