The affiliated unions of the Water Transport Workers Federation of India will observe a ‘Demands Day’ on December 13 at all the major ports in the country.
The unions demanding early wage settlement through the Bipartite Wage Negotiating Committee for formulating the new wage and other related service conditions of the port and dock workers to be given effect from January 1, for a period of 5 years. It also demanded to implement the agreed items of categorisation and classifications committees’ report of Afzul Purkar. During the Demands Day, the affiliated unions would be representing these issues to the Chairmen of the Port Trust concerned.
The Federation also decided to participate in the two days’ national strike call given by the 11 Central Trade Unions on February 20 and 21, 2013. According to Narendra Rao, General Secretary, the federation also resolved to hold its 9th national conference at Visakhapatnam in June.
Referring to the present situation at the Haldia port, he said the Federation requested the port management to speed up the process of mechanising all the berths in the Haldia Dock Complex to make the ports operational and economically viable.