Coal India executives’ body threaten to hold strike over pay conflict

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A panel of Coal India Ltd executives on Sunday threatened to go on strike unless their salary conflicts with non-executive staff are addressed.

The coal ministry said it had agreed to a wage review agreement reached with trade unions for non-executive staff at the mine.

The Association of All India Coal Directors (AIACE), in a letter addressed to the Coal India Chairman, said the new remuneration agreement for non-executive employees would lead to pay conflicts with the executives.

The association demanded that executive employees be compensated by allowing wage protection through a personal wage package for them so that their salaries would not be less than workers’ wages.

“We have requested Coal India to immediately take appropriate necessary action to provide Personal Pay (PP) to the Executives and to clear the conflict no later than 30 September 2023.

Otherwise, executives may have to resort to agitation including strike, if necessary thereafter, said the association’s general secretary, PK Singh Rathore.

The Coal Ministry has agreed to a remuneration review agreement reached with trade unions for ‘non-executive’ employees of Coal India Ltd.

Contacted by Coal India on June 22, the ministry said, “The Memorandum of Agreement for NCWA-XI signed by Coal India Ltd, Singareni Collieries Company Limited and trade union representatives has been confirmed.”

The agreement provides for 19 per cent minimum guaranteed benefits from 1 July 2021, on bonuses – variable basic cost allowance, special cost allowance and attendance bonus along with a 25 per cent increase in allowances.

The agreement will benefit approximately 2.81 thousand non-executive employees of CIL and SCCL, who were on the company’s rolls as of July 1, 2021.

CIL has made provision of Rs. 9,252.24 crore for a period of 21 months from 1st July 2021 to 31st March 2023, for this purpose.

The company’s net profit fell by 18% to Rs. 5,528 crore in the fourth quarter of FY2023 due to higher provisions for wages.

(Only the title and image for this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard team; the rest of the content is generated automatically from a shared feed.)