Tense situation prevailed near the administrative building of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) as hundreds of workers stormed the building on Tuesday demanding wage revision which was allegedly pending for the past six years.
The employees of the Vizag Steel Plant blocked the roads inside the steel plant and surrounded the plant’s administrative building in a protest against the central government plan for privatisation of the steel plant.
The police had a tough time ensuring law and order.The workers belonged to the INTUC, CITU, AITUC and YSR-TUC, which jointly called a strike.
They laid siege to the administration building also demanding an increase in wages.The unions pleaded that the wage revision agreement be implemented on the lines of SAIL (Steel Authority of India Limited).
The security personnel of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) somehow managed to stop them from barging into the building.The workers and leaders of various trade unions alleged the centre for trying to discriminate the VSP workers from their counterparts in other steel plants, which were under the purview of SAIL.
Though an agreement was signed in 2012, revising the wages, it was implemented in the case of SAIL and the same was not implemented for the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant workers, lamented the employees on protest.They raised slogans seeking wages on par with SAIL workers.
According to the agitators, there has been no hike in the salaries of the workers for the past 10 years, while the pay pack has been the same for officers for the past 16 years.
They further pointed out that no recruitment was taken up afresh to fill the vacancies.
Over 150 employees would be retiring next month, they said
Earlier, on May 3 union leaders had protested against the centre’s move to privatise the steel plant in Vishakapatnam.
