Labour Progressive Front says NLC staff cant buy shares

Chennai, July 3 (UNI) The DMK-affiliated Labour Progressive Front (LPF) today said DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi's suggestion that the Centre could consider giving shares to NLC employees was not acceptable.

Reacting to the suggestion that the Centre could give the shares to employees, if it could not reverse its decision on disinvesting ten per cent equity in the PSU, LPF President G Dhandapani said the employees were not in a position to buy the shares.

Stating that the employees were firm on opposing any kind of disinvestment, he told newspersons here that the sale of shares to the employees would ''open the backdoor'' for privatisation of the public sector undertaking, which was consistently making profits.

He said about 20,000 employees earned a total monthly salary of Rs One crore and it would not be possible for them to purchase ten per cent of shares, priced at Rs 1,100 crore.

Mr Dhandapani alleged that the Centre had already disinvested 6.5 per cent of equity in ''NLC and if it was allowed to disinvest another ten per cent, the corporation would slowly slip into the hands of the private sector. 'NLC is a golden goose and we will not allow the Centre to kill the goose,'' he said.

The trade union leader said if the Centre did not reverse its decision within two days, family members of employees would join the stir in the first stage. In the second stage, the employees would involve political parties and farmers, he added.

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