Dear Comrades,
CONFEDERATION OF CENTRALGOVT. EMPLOYEES & WORKERS.
A-2/95,Manishinath Bhawan,
Rajouri Garden,New Delhi-110 027
Website: confederationhq. Blogspot.com.E mail:confederation06@yahoo.co.in.
To
The
Honourable Prime Minister,
Government
of India,
South Block,
New Delhi.
110 001
Dear Sir,
More than 15,000 Central Govt. Employees from all over the country
representing various affiliates of the Confederation of Central Government
employees and workers have marched to Parliament today to present this Memorandum containing a brief
note on the 14 point Charter of demands
and seek your kind intervention in finding a settlement of these issues. The
employees and workers in all Departments of the Government of India are
distressed over the total breakdown of the negotiating machinery. i.e. JCM
. The Council meetings are not being
held in any Ministry other than Railways, Defence and to a limited extent in
the Postal and Atomic Energy Departments.
There is no channel of communication that exist between the employees and the
heads of Departments with the result that none of their grievances are attended
to or addressed. This apart, in quite a
number of Departments, the Associations /Federations have not been granted
recognition in- spite of fulfilling all the conditions stipulated under the CCS
(RSA) Rules, 1993 with the result even bilateral discussions at the level of
heads of offices have been dispensed with.
We, therefore, once again request your good-self to kindly give
necessary direction to the concerned that the issues we have presented through
this memorandum are addressed immediately.
Thanking you,
Yours
faithfully,
K.K.N.
Kutty
Secretary General.
BRIEF NOTE ON DEMANDS
Item No. 1.
Revision of wage with effect from. 1.,01..2011.
The present
wage structure of the Central Govt. Employees has been made on the basis of the
6th Central Pay Commission’s recommendations. The 6th CPC introduced a new
concept in the form of Pay band and Grade Pay.
The recommendations of the Commission were implemented with effect from
1.1.2006 in the case of Pay and in the case of allowances with effect from 1.9.
2008. In the case of Central Public
Sector undertakings, the wage revisions normally takes place after every five
years. The 5th CPC in the
case of Central Government employees recommended wage revision in every 10
years. In the past wage revision has
been linked to the extent of erosion of real wages. The degree of inflation in the economy
determines the pace of erosion of the real value of wages. The retail prices of those commodities which
go into the making of minimum wages have risen by about 160% from 1.1.2006 to
1.1. 2011, whereas the D.A. compensation in the case of Central Government
employees on that date had been just 51%.
It is also an acknowledged fact that the 6th CPC had computed
the minimum wage by suppressing the retail price of these commodities in the
market on the specious plea that official statistics of the retail prices of
these commodities were not available.
They therefore, computed the retail price by increasing the wholesale
price by 20% for each of the commodity whereas the actual retail price in the
market was 60% more than the wholesale price.
While in the case of Group B,C & D employees, the Commission applied
a multiplication factor of 1.86 for arriving at the revised pay structure, in
the case of Group A Officers, the factor was ranging from 2.36 to 3 times. In
the matter of fitment formula also, unlike recommended by the 5th
CPC, the 6th CPC adopted varying percentages whereby the officers in
Group A were given rise extending from 42 to 49%, whereas the employees in
Group B,C,D were granted only 40%. While implementing the Commission’s
recommendations, the Government further accentuated the discrimination further.
The recommendations of the 6th CPC when implemented gave rise to
very many glaring anomalies. The
National Council JCM set up a National Anomaly Committee to deal with these
issues which are common to all CGEs and directed the Ministries and Departments
to set up such anomaly committees at the Departmental level to deal with
department specific issues. As has been
mentioned elsewhere in this memorandum, the effectiveness of JCM as potent
forum to settle issues has been eroded over the years by systematically
tinkering with its functioning by the official side. Though the National Anomaly Committee met 4-5
times, it could not settle any major issues. The MACP, introduced by the
Government in replacement of the ACP Scheme already in vogue has not gone to
improve the career prospects of the employees due to various untenable
stipulations made in the order by the DOPT.
The Government has refused to act upon the Tribunal’s decision in the
matter . Nor has it brought about any
settlement on this issue through bilateral discussions at the National Anomaly
Committee.
The Grameen Dak Sewaks were excluded from the
purview of the 6th Central Pay Commission as the Postal Department
took an erroneous view that they are not Central Government employees. The 4th CPC had categorically stated that they ought
to have been included within the purview of the Commission’s jurisdiction but
chose to go by the Postal Department’s decision ultimately. As has been
mentioned elsewhere in this memorandum, the GDS constitute the largest chunk of
the Postal Workers. The exclusion of GDS
from the purview of the Pay Commission being
unjust, discriminatory and bereft of any logic, it must be ensured that
the next Pay Commission when it is set up will have the jurisdiction to recommend on wage structure and service conditions of
the GDS.
Wage
revision in all public Sector undertakings through Collective bargaining takes
place once in five years. On the same analogy, the wage revision of the Central
Government employees must be after every five years and the Government must set
up the 7th CPC immediately.
Item No. 2.
Merger of DA with pay:
The wage
revision of the Central Government employees had always been through the
setting up of Pay Commissions.
Since the wage revision exercise
involves inquiring into various aspects of wage determination and service
conditions of the Government employees the Government had been appointing Pay
Commissions for it was considered a better suited system of wage negotiation in
the given circumstance. Such
inquiry through setting up of
Commissions had been a time consuming process.
The 3rd, 4th and 5th Central Pay
Commissions had taken more than three years to submit its report. The 6th CPC however, submitted its
report in the time frame provided to it i.e. 18 months. Since the earlier Commissions had covered
many aspects of the principles of wage determination and the periodicity of
such revision had come down, the exercise might not now require a longer period of time as was the
case earlier Even then the Commission
will have to be given a reasonable time frame to go into the matter judiciously
and arrive at conclusion. This apart,
certain administrative delay cannot also be avoided. The methodology adopted for compensating
the erosion in the real value of wages had been the merger of DA with Pay. The 5th CPC had recommended that
the DA must be merged with pay and treated as pay for computing all allowances
as and when the percentage of Dearness compensation exceeds 50%. Accordingly even before the setting up of the
6th CPC the DA to the extent of 50% was merged with pay. However,
the Government refused to extend the said benefit to the Grameen Dak Sewaks for
no reason. Presently, the Dearness
compensation is 65% as on 1.1.2012. As
on 1.1.2011, the DA was at the rate of 50%.
The suggestion for merger of DA to partially compensate the erosion in
the real wages was first mooted by the Gadgil Committee in the post 2nd
Pay Commission period. The 3rd
CPC had recommended such merger when the Cost of Living index crosses over 272
points i.e. 72 points over and above the base index adopted for the pay
revision. In other words, the
recommendation of the 3rd CPC was to merge the DA when it crossed
36%. The Government in the National Council JCM at the time of negotiation
initially agreed to merge 60% DA and
later the whole of the DA before the 4th CPC was set up. The 5th CPC merged 98% of DA with
pay. It is, therefore, necessary that
the Government takes steps to merge 50% of DA with pay for all purposes to
compensate the erosion of the real value of wages of the Central Government
employees including the Grameen Dak Sewaks.
Item No. 3.
Compassionate appointments
On the plea of a
Supreme Court directive, Govt. introduced a 5% ceiling on the compassionate
appointments. When the matter was taken up by the Staff Side in the
National Council the Government was unable to produce any such directive from
the Supreme Court.. Despite that the official side refused to withdraw the said
instructions limiting the appointments to 5% of the available vacancies.
In one of the National Council meetings, presided over by the Cabinet Secretary
solemn assurance was given to the Staff Side for the reconsideration of the
issue in the light of the discussion, but nothing happened till date. .
It is pertinent to mention in this connection that the compassionate
appointments in the Railways continue to be operated without any such ceiling.
In the Department of Posts hundreds of compassionate appointment candidates
selected by Selection Committee were denied jobs. The list of selected candidates was scrapped. These
candidates approached the Court and obtained a favourable order. Despite that various courts have struck down
this untenable stipulation, the Government has chosen to file SLP in the
Supreme Court. When the Central
Administrative Tribunals were established, it was with the intent of
expeditious settlement of disputes on service matters. Even recently the Government has announced that
it would not be open for various Ministries to appeal against the orders of the
Tribunal as a matter of course and efforts must be to explore the ways of
acceptances of the judgements of the Tribunal.
In the light of this directive from the Prime Minister’s office, the SLP
ought to have been withdrawn. The standing
Committee on Department of Personnel in one of their report has termed the
scheme of Compassionate ground appointments as a sacred assurance to a fresh
entrant that if he dies in harness, his family shall not be left in lurch. Such an assurance is being breached by the
provisions of limiting such appointments to 5% of DR vacancies.
This has to be done away with. We therefore urge the Honourable Prime
Minister that direction may be issued to do away with the stipulation and
compassionate appointments be given to all deserving candidates.
Item No.4. Functioning of the
JCM and implementation of the
arbitration award.
It was in the wake of the indefinite
strike action of 1960, the JCM was set up as a negotiating forum to expedite
settlement of demands and problems of employees.
On the pretext of the promulgation of
the new CCS(RSA)Rules, most of the departments suspended the operation of the
Departmental Councils. . Even after complying with the requisite
formalities, in many departments, Associations/Federations are yet to be
recognized. Wherever the recognition
process was completed and orders issued granting recognition, no meetings of
the Departmental Councils are held.
Inspite of raising the issue in the National Council on several
occasions by the Staff Side, nothing tangible has been done to ensure that the
councils are made functional.
The National Council is, as per the
scheme, to meet once in four months. It
meets after several years, the system of concluding on the agenda in the
meeting in which it is raised has been totally abandoned with the result that
number of issues have been kept pending for indefinite period of time. The non- functioning of the Council and the
consequent non- redressal of grievances has led to agitations including strike
action in many departments. The 6th CPC recommendations were given effect
to in September, 2008. The anomalies
arising therefrom (which is in large numbers) ought to have been settled as per
the agreement by Feb,. 2010. Barring one
or two items, no settlement has been brought about on a large number of
anomalies till date.
In the wake of the General Strike
action of the working class in the country against the neo liberal economic
policies of the Government on 28th Feb. 2012, the Joint Secretary
(Estt.) in the Department of Personnel wrote as under in her demi-official communication
addressed to all Secretaries of the Government of India, which is contrary to
facts and misleading too.
“Joint
consultative machinery for Central Government employees is already
functioning. This scheme has been
introduced with the object t of promoting harmonious relations and of securing
the greatest measure of co-operation between the Government, in its capacity as
employer and the general body of its employees in matters of common concern,
and with the object further of increasing the efficiency of the public
service. The JCM at different levels
have been discussing issues brought before it for consideration and either
reaching amicable settlement or referring the matter to the Board of Arbitration
in relation to pay and allowances, weekly hours of work and leave, wherever no
amicable settlement could be reached in relation to these items.”
The forum of Departmental Councils
must be immediately revived in all Departments and made effective as an
instrument to settle the demands of the employees. The periodicity in which the meeting of the
National Council is to be held must be adhered.
We request that the Department of Personnel, which is the nodal
department for ensuring the functioning of the negotiating machinery is advised
to monitor the functioning of the Departmental Councils of various Ministries
and Departments and a report placed in the National Council. The Cabinet Secretary, who is the Chairman of
the National Council, may please be asked that the Council meetings are convened
once in four months and the issues raised therein settled in a reasonable time
frame. Since the grant of recognition to
Service Association is a pre requisite for the effective functioning of the
negotiating machinery, the Ministries may be asked to process the application
and take decision in the matter immediately as the recognition rules have come
into existence in 1993 that is about a decade back.
Item No. 5.
Remove the ban on recruitment and creation of posts
In 1993,
the Government of India introduced a total and blanket ban on creation of
posts. This was with a view to reduce
the manpower in the Governmental establishments for on implementation of the
neo liberal economic policies, the Government will be required to close down
some of its activities and some others to be shifted to the private domain. In
2001, the GOI issued an executive instruction modifying the
complete ban on recruitment that was in vogue whereby various departments, if
they so desire, resort to recruit personnel to fill up the existing vacancies, provided they abolish 2/3rd
of such vacancies. In other words, the
concerned heads of Departments will be permitted to fill up 1/3rd of
the vacancies provided they abolish the 2/3rd vacancies permanently.
Since it
was impossible to carry on the functions assigned to the Departments, they had
to implement the above cited directive of the Department of personnel, which
was meant to arbitrarily reduce the manpower especially in Group C and D
segments. Though the directive was to be
applied uniformly to all cadres where direct entry is one of the mode of
recruitment, not a single Group A. post
was abolished as most of the departments offered to do away with equal number
of Group C and D posts. Since direct
recruitment is seldom resorted to in Group B cadres, the brunt of the burden of
the above cited instruction had to be borne by the Group C and D cadres in each
department. The said directive remained
operative for nearly a decade i.e. upto 2010.
Such abnormal and arbitrary abolition of posts affected very adversely
the functioning of many departments consequent upon which the public at large
suffered immeasurably. To cope up with
the genuine complaints of the public, most of the heads of Departments had to
resort to either outsourcing of the functions or engaging contract workers. In
the circumstances, we urge upon you to kindly direct all the Departments of the
Government of India to immediately fill up all the existing vacancies.
The
Government has a time tested and scientific system of assessing the workload
and measuring the manpower requirement on the basis of the periodical changes
that takes place from time to time. This seems to have been presently abandoned
and the vacancies except in a few cases are not being filled up and no new
posts are created, except in Group A cadres, even though there had been
phenomenal increase in the workload in each department. The 6th CPC dealing with the
subject has recommended that such ban on creation of posts for a long period is
not desirable and the Departments should be empowered to create the need based
posts for its effective functioning. We
request that commensurate posts that are needed to cope up with the increasing
workload may be sanctioned and recruitment of personnel resorted to so that the
assigned functions of each department could be carried out effectively and
efficiently. Existing vacancies
Item No.
6. Downsizing, outsourcing,
contractorisation etc.
Due to the situation that came into being because of the 2001 directive
of the Government, as explained in the preceding paragraphs and due to the
pursuance of the neo- liberal economic policies, many departments had to resort
to outsourcing of its functions. Some
departments were virtually closed down and a few others were privatised or
contractorised. The large scale
outsourcing and contractorisation of functions had a telling effect on the
efficacy of the Government departments.
The delivery system was adversely affected and the public at large
suffered due to the inordinate delay it caused in getting the service from the
Government departments. The financial
outlay for outsourcing of functions of each department increased enormously
over the years. The quality of work
suffered. In order to ensure that the
people do get a better and efficient service from the Government departments
and to raise the image of the Government in the eyes of the common people, it
is necessary that the present scheme of outsourcing and contractorisation of
essential functions of the Government
must be abandoned.
Item No. 7.
Stop price rise and strengthen PDS.
The
abnormal and phenomenal increase in the prices of essential commodities is an
acknowledged fact. The pursuance of the
new economic policies and consequent withdrawal of the universal public
distribution system had been per se the reason for such unbearable
inflation. The universal PDS which was
evolved to protect the food security of common people was an effective
instrument not only to arrest inflation but also to ensure that no Indian dies
of hunger. Government employees even at
the lowest wage structure i.e. the Group D and C employees are presently
precluded from the PDS as their meagre wages itself is considered to be above
the benchmark of “Below Poverty Line”.
They are to depend upon the open market for even essential food items,
which with their meagre income they are unable to access. It is, therefore, necessary that the
universal PDS as was in vogue must be brought back as the market forces have
failed to arrest inflation and price rise of essential food items.
Item No.
8(a) Regularisation of daily rated workers.
Regularisation
of Casual/Contingent/daily rated workers.
In most of the Departments, as detailed elsewhere in this memorandum,
the Departmental heads had to recruit personnel on daily rated basis or as
casual workers due to the ban on recruitment to cope up with the increasing
workload. Almost 25% of the present
workforce in Governmental organisations is casual workers deployed to do the
permanent and perennial nature of jobs, despite the fact that the labour laws
do not allow assigning such jobs to casual workers. In 1950s and 1960, even the casual workers
who had been employed to do the casual and non perennial jobs used to get
priority for regular employment as and when vacancy for such permanent
recruitment arises. Thousands of persons
are recruited as casual workers and kept in the employment continuously for
want of permanent hands. They are paid
pittance of a salary with no benefits like provident fund, dearness allowance,
other compensatory allowances etc. In
order to ensure that they do not get the benefit of regularisation, these
workers are technically discharged for a few days to be employed afresh
again. The modus operandi differs from
one department to another. While in some
organisations, they are recruited through employment exchanges as daily rated workers, in others the
functions are contracted out. Not only
the quality of work suffers but it is also an inhuman exploitation of the
workers given the serious situation of unemployment that exists in the country. While the permanent solution is to sanction
the necessary posts and resort to regular recruitment, the Government should evolve a scheme by
which these casual/contingent/daily rated workers are made regular workers with
all the concomitant benefits available for regular Government employees. Pending finalisation of such a scheme for
regularisation, the non regular employees who are recruited by the heads of
departments for meeting the exigencies of work must be paid atleast the minimum of the salary, which are paid to
the similarly placed regular employees on the basis of equal pay for equal
work.
Item No.
8(b). Absorption of GDS as regular postal employees
The postal
Department employs the largest number of Government employees, next to
Railways
and Defence. Nearly half of its workforce
is called the Grameen Dak Sewaks, the new nomenclature given for the
Extra Departmental Agents. The system of EDAs was evolved by the
British
Colonial Government to sustain a postal system at a cheaper cost
especially in
rural areas. Despite the enactment of
very many legislation to prohibit the exploitation of workers, the
Government
continued with this system. No doubt in
the post independent era, at the instance and persuasion of the Unions
of
regular employees, certain benefits were accorded to them. Till 1963,
the GDS
or the Extra Departmental Agents were treated as Government employees
and were
covered by the service conditions applicable to civil servants.
However, the Department of Post reversed
this position thereafter and contended that they are not Central
Government
employees. The Honourable Supreme Court in 1977 declared that they are
holders
of Civil Posts. Justice Talwar Committee
appointed by the Govt. To look into the issues pertaining to GDS
declared that
the GDS are holders of Civil posts and all benefits similar to regular
employees must be extended to them.
However, the Government did not accept this recommendation of the
committee which they themselves set up. On the specific suggestion of
the
Postal Department, the Government set up a separate Committee called the
Natarajamurthy Committee to go into their service conditions and suggest
improvement
on the lines of the recommendations of the 6th CPC. The recommendations of this Committee were
totally disappointing and the GDS in the post 6th CPC era is worse
of. Instead of utilising the service of GDS for the welfare schemes of the
State in rural area by converting them as regular employees, the Department
caused injustice to them by acting upon the recommendations of the Natarajamurthy
Committee. Recently, the Postal Department has decided that the
vacancies in the Cadre of Postmen, and MTS would not be fully made available
for promotion to the GDS and an element of open direct recruitment has been
introduced. This has decelerated the
meagre chance of the GDS being a regular Postal employee further. In order to ensure that their grievances are
properly addressed, the Postal Department must be directed to earmark all the
existing vacancies in the cadre of Postmen and MTS to the eligible GDS for
promotion and a scheme is evolved to absorb the GDS as regular full time
Government employees whereby all the service
conditions of the Civil Servants.
Item No.
9.Introduction of PLB and removal of ceiling limit
Barring the
Railways, Defence production units and Postal Department, Bonus is paid to the
Central Government employees on adhoc basis.
The 30 days adhoc bonus is the maximum that is provided to them. The 4thand 5th Central
Pay Commissions had recommended the introduction of productivity linked bonus
scheme to all Departments as is presently the case in the three Departments
mentioned above. Even the scheme of PLB is not uniform in as much as the Postal
Department introduced a ceiling on the entitled number of days of bonus whereas
no such ceiling exist either in the Railways or in the Defence Production
organisations. The Government is yet to
implement these recommendations even though several rounds of discussions on
the subject were held. There is no
reason whatsoever, as to why this recommendation could not be implemented. There had been no rise in the adhoc bonus for
past a decade even though there had been considerable amount of increase in the
case of PLB over the years. The
Department of Personnel and Expenditure may be advised to finalise the PLB
scheme without further delay for those who are in receipt of adhoc bonus.
Even though
Bonus Act is said to have no application or relevance to the Productivity
linked Bonus or adhoc bonus, the provisions of the said Act is employed to deny
bonus to the Government employees on the basis of their emoluments. The bonus entitlement in both the cases is
restricted to the computation based on the notional emoluments of Rs. 3500,
while the Postal Department went one step ahead and declared that in the case
of GDS, it would continue to be Rs. 2500.The injustice meted out to the GDS in
the matter by the Postal Department is highly deplorable. Presently even a casual worker is entitled to
get a monthly wage of more than Rs. 3500.
The minimum wage as on 1.1.2006 determined by the 6th CPC in
respect of Central Government employees
is Rs. 7000. By artificially
linking the restriction of emoluments stipulated by the Bonus Act, the
employees are denied their legitimate entitlement of Bonus. It is, therefore, urged that the Bonus
entitlement be computed on the basis of the actual emoluments an employee
receives.
Item No.
10. Revising OTA and Night Duty
allowance rates:
Overtime
allowance is seldom given to the Government employees. In case of emergency and in the contingency
in which the work cannot be postponed, like that happens in the RMS division of
Postal Department, in the Atomic Energy Commission offices or when the
Parliament is in session in other administrative offices, employees are asked
to do work beyond the stipulated working hours.
The Night duty allowance is provided to the employees who are asked to
work in the night shifts with certain stipulated conditions. The 4th CPC recommended that since
there had been considerable misuse of the provisions relating to the grant of
OTA, the Government should find alternative methods to compensate the employees
who are asked to work on over time and pending such a scheme being evolved
recommended not to revise the rates.
However, the Govt.did not bring in any new scheme of compensation but
issued the directive that the OTA and Night duty allowance will be paid to the
employees who are called upon to do overtime or night duty applicable as if the
pay is not revised at all. This directive
is still in vogue. On quite a number of
occasions, the Staff Side pointed out the irrationality of the directive of the
Government in as much as a person engaged
for managing the excess work from outside gets better emoluments than the over time allowance granted to the
regular employees. The Government
refused to reach an agreement in the National Council on this issue. When the Staff side pressed, the Government
came forward to record disagreement and refered the matter to the Board of Arbitration under
the JCM. Scheme. The Board of
Arbitration having found the unreasonable position taken by the Government gave
out the award in favour of the staff and directed the Government to revise the
order whereby the allowance will be linked to the actual pay of the Government
employees. The Govt. did not accept this
award and has approached the Parliament for the rejection of the same. The matter has not yet been placed in the
form of a resolution in the Parliament.
Despite the fact that the employees had been abiding by the directive of
their superiors to be on overtime/night duty, and despite having won the case
before the Board of Arbitration they continue to be compensated on the basis of
the Notional pay as in 1986. There could
not have been a much bigger injustice meted out to the employees. We request that the Department of
Personnel/Department of Expenditure be asked to issue necessary revised
instruction in the matter in acceptance of the Board of Arbitration award
linking the allowance to the actual pay of the employee.
Item No.11. Arbitration
Awards.
There are about 17 awards of the Board of
Arbitration given in favour of the employees.
On the plea that the implementation of these awards would result in
heavy financial outflow, the Govt. has moved resolutions in the Parliament for
the rejection of these awards. The fact
is that the financial burden on account of acceptance of these awards is
meagre. It is the delay that has been
responsible for the increase in the financial implications as the awards are to
be implemented from the date mentioned by the Board of Arbitration in their
order. A few years back, the staff
side agreed to alter the date of
implementation of these awards in order to reduce the financial
implication. The official side discussed
the issue on several occasions but did not conclude with the result that these
awards are still pending acceptance of the Government. It is rather unethical and untenable that the
Government has chosen to invoke the sovereign authority of the Parliament to
deny the legitimate dues of its own employees.
Prior to 1998, the Government has not chosen to approach the Parliament
once the award is given in favour of the employees and implemented every one of
them except in a very few cases. We
urge that the concerned Ministries may be advised to accept these awards and
implement the same for such a direction will bring in confidence and respect
amongst the employees over the Governmental actions.
Item No. 12.Vacate All Trade Union victimisation.
The Central Government
employees are alarmed and distressed over the spree of vindictive actions
pursued by various Accountant Generals against the employees of the I A &
AD Department. More than 12000 employees
have been proceeded against under Rule 14 or 16 of the CCS (CCA) rules. The
resort to such vindictive action has been taken by the Administration of the
Comptroller and Auditor General of India for the simple reason that the
employees together decided to be on mass casual leave demanding the vacation of
victimization of the Union functionaries in Kerala, Rajkot, Gwalior, Kolkata,
Nagpur, Allahabad etc. The very fact that large number of employees
participated in the Mass Casual leave programme is indicative of the fact of
the growing discontent against the highhandedness of the Administration.
The authorities in the
IA & AD have not been permitting the genuine trade union activities for the
last several years. No meeting of the employees is allowed if the same is held
under the auspices of the recognized Associations, whereas permission to hold
cultural shows even during office hours are granted. In the name of discipline,
dissenting voice, howsoever genuine they are, are not being tolerated. Despite
repeated pleas made by the All India Audit and Accounts Association, the
Comptroller General of India did not deem it to fit to intervene and set right
the high handed behaviour of the Accountant General Kerala. On his promotion as
Principal Accountant General, he was transferred to Hyderabad, where, as per
the report, he has continued with his intolerant attitude towards the
Association. Permission to hold the General Body meeting, a constitutional
requirement and a necessity to abide by the stipulations made by the CCS (RSA)
Rules, 1993, was denied to the recognized Association in Andhra Pradesh. The
General Secretary and other office bearers of the Association have been
proceeded against under Rule 16 for holding the General Body meeting during
lunch break.
In the background of
this unprecedented situation and the blanket ban instituted by the authorities
to hold any meeting within the office premises we appeal to the Honourable
Prime Minister to kindly intervene in the matter and direct the concerned to
hear the grievances of the employees and settle the same in an amicable and
peaceful atmosphere. In order to create a conducive atmosphere for talks, the
authorities may be asked to withdraw all punitive and vindictive actions
against the employees who had gone on Mass casual leave as a means of
protesting against the inordinate delay in settling issues and to give vent to
their feeling of anger against the vindictive actions of various Accountant
Generals.
Item No. 13. Right to strike
Article 309 of the
Constitution makes it incumbent upon the Government of India and the
Provincial
Governments to make enactments to regulate the service conditions of the
civil
servants. However, till date no such enactment has either been moved or
passed by the Parliament.. The transitory provisions empowering the
President of India to make rules till such time the enactment is made
has been
employed to regulate the service conditions of the Government
employees. Once recruited as an
employee, the ILO's conventions provide all trade union rights. India
is
a signatory to those conventions. Despite all these legal and moral
obligations
on the part of the Government, the Government employees continue to be
denied
the right to collective bargaining. No negotiation is worth the
meaning,
if the employees have no right to withdraw their labour in case of a
non-satisfactory agreement on their demands. It is this legal lacuna
which was employed by the Supreme Court to justify the arbitrary
dismissal of
lakhs of employees by the Tamilnadu State Government when they resorted
to
strike action. In the judgment delivered by the Supreme Court, it was
observed that the Government employees do not have any legal,
fundamental or
moral right to resort to strike action. The entire section of the
Indian
Working Class enjoys the right to strike and an effective collective
bargaining
system except the Government employees.
The denial of the right to strike to Government employees was employed
by the British Colonial Rulers as part of the scheme to subjugate the
Indian
people and to shut out any probable dissenting views within the
Governmental machinery. To continue with the same concept is to infer
that the Sovereign Republic of India
want to follow the archaic rules and regulations conceived by colonial
rulers
perhaps with the same intent. We
therefore urge that necessary legislation affording the right to strike
to
Government employees may be made in the Parliament.
Item No. 14 :Career
progression:
For the efficient
functioning of an institution, the primary pre-requisite is to have a contended
workforce. It is not only the emoluments,
perks and privileges that motivate an employee to give his best. They are no
doubt important. But what is more
important is to provide them a systematic career progression. The present
system of career progression available in the All India Services and the
organised group A Civil services attracts large number of young, talented and
educated persons to compete in the All India Civil Service Examination. No different was the career progression
scheme available in the subordinate services in the past. Persons who were recruited to subordinate
services were able to climb to Managerial positions over a period of time. The situation underwent vast changes in the
last two decades. In most of the
Departments, stagnation has come to stay.
It takes decades to be promoted to the next higher grade in the
hierarchy. It was the recognition of the
lack of promotional avenue in the subordinate services that made the 5th
CPC to recommend a time bound two career
progression scheme. However, this has
not gone to address the inherent problem of de-motivation that has crept in due
to the high level of stagnation. In most
of the Departments, the exercise of cadre review which was considered important
was not carried out. Any attempt in this
regard was restricted to Group A services.
The discontent amongst the employees in the matter is of high magnitude
today. It is, therefore, necessary that
every Department is asked to undertake to bring about a cadre composition and
recruitment pattern in such a manner that an employee once recruited is to have
five
hierarchical promotions in his career as is presently the position
in the All India Services and in the organised Group A services.
Item No.15: Scrap the New Pension Scheme
The defined benefit scheme of pension was
introduced replacing the then existing contributory system decades back.
. The Government decided to reconvert the same into a contributory scheme
on the specious plea that the outflow on pension had been increasing year by
year and is likely to cross the wage bill. By making it contributory, the
Government expenditure on this score is not likely to get reduced for the next
36 years because of the reason that as
per the announced scheme, the Government is to contribute the same amount to
the fund as the employees contribute. Coupled with this stipulation the
Government is also duty bound to make payment for the existing pensioners and
for all Central Government employees who were in service prior to
1.1.2004. The contribution collected
from the employees who are recruited after 1.1.2004 is to be managed by a
mutual fund operator for investment in the stock market. It is the vagaries of the stock market which
will then determine the quantum of pension or in other words annuity, which
would not be cost indexed. Before the introduction of the new scheme and
the PFRDA bill, the Government had set up a committee under the chairmanship of
Shri Bhattacharya, the then Chief Secretary of the State of Karnataka. The bill
was unfortunately drafted and presented to the Parliament disregarding even the
recommendation of the said committee to the effect that the Govt. should
consider introducing a hybrid system by which the employees will have either a
defined benefit pension or opt for a higher return through stock
exchange investments. Despite the non-passage of the bill and the
consequent absence of a valid law to support the Pension Regulatory authority,
the Govt. converted the existing pension scheme into a contributory one through
executive fiat and invested a percentage of the fund so generated from the
employees’ contribution in the Stock market. India is a young country and
the expenditure on statutory pension has remained over a long period not more
than 5% of GDP which the country/Government can afford to spend. The withdrawal
of PFRDA bill is required for the following reasons too:
(a) The new pension scheme is going to make social security in old age
uncertain and dependent on market forces.
(b) The scheme has been compulsorily imposed on a section of employees and
hence it is discriminatory.
(c) Such scheme had been a failure in many countries including Chile, UK
and even USA. In USA entire pension
wealth has been wiped out leaving pensioners with no pension. In Argentina the
contributory scheme which was introduced at the instance of IMF was replaced
with the defined benefit pension scheme.
(d) The PFRDA Bill has provisions empowering the Govt. and the Authority
to cover employees now left out and to amend the existing entitlements of
pension benefits.
(e) In majority of the countries, “pay as you go” is the system of
pension.
(f)
The contributory
scheme does not give any guarantee for a minimum pension of 50% of the pay
drawn at the time of retirement of the employee. Nor does it provide for the protection of his family members in the
form of family pension in the event of death.
