Rourkela: A united mass demonstration call has been given Tuesday by all trade unions active in Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) at the Bisra Chowk from 8 am to 9 am Wednesday. A combined meeting of the trade unions was held at the office of the Rourkela Shramik Sangh (RSS), the recognised union of RSP affiliated with INTUC. The joint platform of all the unions decided that the workers of SAIL and RSP would hold a mass demonstration to create pressure on the management. Their demands include payment of 39 months arrears of the workers, hike in the night shift allowance, commencement of the S-12 and S-13 grades, formalisation of the 10th pay commission through MOA by convening a complete meeting of the National Joint Commission for Steel (NJCS).
Along with Prasant Behera, general secretary of RSS, those present in the meeting included Bishnu Mohanty, all-India vice president of CITU, Pramod Das, Ajit Nayak, Ramesh Sahu, Nilakantha Das and others. The leaders strongly criticised the “time-consuming” techniques of the SAIL management in fulfilling the just demands and rights of the workers. They came down heavily on the management saying, “There has been a delay in the payment of the arrears, night shift allowance, enhancement of HRA and implementation of the S-12 and S-13, despite a significant increase in productivity and profit to the tune of Rs 2,500 crores.” They strongly demanded initiate immediate decision on all these issues during the subcommittee meeting of the NJCS to be held May 30 and called for a full-strength NJCS meeting to complete the MOA for the pay agreement.