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23 February, 2009
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda last week congratulated mining unions in India, especially the ICEM affiliated Indian National Mineworkers' Federation (INMF) and its General Secretary BK Das, who took a leading role in achieving a new wage agreement.
The National Coal Wage Agreement (NCWA-VIII) gives 500,000 miners across India pay increases totalling 24% over five years.
The agreement, signed in New Delhi on 24 January, also improves working conditions. MK Pandhe, Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) President, commended the successful negotiations that were made possible by the unified work of five national federations, CITU, INTUC, BMS, AITUC, and HMS.
The agreement provides a minimum benefit hike of 24% of gross wages effective 1 July 2006, and an annual increment of 3% with cumulative effect. It provides for an open-ended pay scale which ensures no wage stagnation for any employee during the period of the agreement. The agreement also gives a 50% increase in all allowances, effective 1 January 2009. The underground allowance will be 12.5% of the basic scale, and will be treated as part of the basic wage.
The agreement will ensure a minimum weekly base wage for a coalminer at INR 9,346 (US$188), the highest in the Indian public sector.
Under the agreement, employees will be provided with a uniform and a monthly washing allowance of INR 75, as well as a transport subsidy of at least INR 10.50 per day. The underground allowance will continue to be paid at 12.5% of the revised basic salary, along with an attendance bonus of 10% of basic pay and a special dearness allowance of 17.95% of the attendance bonus. Annual leave with wages will continue to be governed by the provisions of the Indian Mines Act of 1952.
The unified mining workers rebuffed efforts by management to make the agreement ten years in length.
Current challenges facing INMF are the struggle against privatization, outsourcing, corruption, unsafe working conditions, and the rise of Contract and Agency Labour in the Indian mining sector.
The ICEM joins INMF, CITU, and other union federations in appealing to all coal miners to strengthen the unity achieved with this contract to continue bringing short-term contract and agency workers into the union fold.
During a visit to India recently by Warda, he met with the Committee of the Indian Mineworkers’ Union on Health and Safety, encouraging the union to work towards an ICEM-sponsored tripartite meeting late this year on Indian ratification of ILO Convention 176, the Safety and Health in Mines Convention.
Warda also inaugurated a workshop on Contract & Agency Labour (CAL) that was held in Puri on 15-16 February that was attended by 28 contract workers from the Mahanadi Coalfields, Ltd. He supported the efforts of CITU to organise fixed-term and agency workers. It was reported that since the federation started its campaign to organise, 30,000 CAL workers had joined unions.
Kanti Mehta
The ICEM General Secretary also unveiled the life-size bronze statue of the late Kanti Mehta, the founder of the INMF, who passed away on 20 October 2007 at the age of 87. The unveiling occurred on 15 February, on what would have been his 90th birthday.