Coal news and updates

CIL officers defer 3-day strike on assurance from management

March 14: The Coal Mines Officers Association, in the wee hours of March 14, decided to call off its 3-day strike that begun on March 13, following assurances from the management of Coal India Ltd (CIL) that the latter will address its issues related to introduction of performance-linked salaries for officers in the company.

However, the association also decided that, in case its demands were not met, it would resume the stir for the balance 2 days sometime in the future.

CIL has about 18,000 officers in its total employee strength of about 358,000.

The strike call from March 13-15 had severely affected CIL's production on March 13 as nearly 80% of the officers of the company had participated in it.

The decision to defer the strike was taken after a marathon meeting between the representatives of the association and the CIL management in Kolkata, that started at around 7 pm on March 13 and continued till 3 am on March 14, official sources said.

"The CIL management informed the association's representatives that a Committee of Secretaries has positively recommended implementation of performance-related pay for workers of the company and the recommendations will now be put before the Cabinet for its approval," official sources added.

"Following this information, the association's representatives decided to defer the strike, as a result of which work resumed in the mines on March 14 and production remained normal," the sources said.

Asked if there would be any problem in the Cabinet decision, especially when the Model Code of Conduct is in place in the country after the announcement of the general elections, the sources said, "The Cabinet can take a decision anytime and it will not be affected by the Model Code of Conduct," the sources said.