NLC contract workers on strike again

Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu, June 2 (UNI) About 90 per cent of the contract workers of the public sector Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) today abstained from work to press their nine-point charter of demands.

According to AICTU Cuddalore district General Secretary M Sekar, only 1,021 of the total 7,696 contract employees on duty today in various shifts reported for work.

The striking contract employees were demanding that they be made permanent and the management pay them 8.33 per cent bonus, among others.

It may be recalled that the contract workers of NLC had resorted to a stir on March 29 last, pressing for the same demands. However, they had withdrawn their picketing agitation on April five, after Tamil Nadu Electricity Minister Arcot N Veerasamy assured on the floor of the Assembly that he would take up the matter with the Union Minister concerned and the company management cleared the bonus for 2005-06.

Mr Sekar said the workers were left with no other option but to stage an agitation again as the State Government had not intervened in the matter, despite giving tall promises. A permanent solution should be found for the issue, he added.

He said the family members of the contract workers would soon join the agitation and they would also resort to blocking road and rail traffic.

As many as 250 police personnel were deployed in Neyveli in the district to avert any untoward incident following the strike.

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