Nagpur: National Railway Mazdoor Union (NRMU) on Monday held mass protest demonstrations in front of office of General Manager, Central Railway, Mumbai CST and all DRMs against the deliberate efforts of the Railway Ministry and the Railway Board for not resolving several burning issues of Railwaymen. The protest demonstrations were held as per a call given by All India Railwaymen’s Federation. These issues were submitted to the Government and the Railway Ministry through a charter of demands of AIRF further to acceptance of 7th CPC recommendations which was implemented w.e.f. 1-1-2016. Various committees were constituted by Government to look into these issues and asked to submit its report in a time frame.
Despite of Union’s best efforts to maintain the cordial negotiation on these demands the Govt. has deliberately delayed the submission of the committee’s report and for acceptance of the recommendations already submitted by the certain committees such as the Allowance Committee. This inordinate delay and apathy shown towards the genuine demands of the Railwaymen has created a lot of unrest among the staff and therefore the unions are compelled to resort to agitations on the call of All India Railwaymen’s Federation.
The demands of the Railwaymen are as follows:
Improvement of minimum pay and revision of fitment factor
Union has demanded improvement of minimum pay from the existing amount of Rs. 18000/-. The fitment factor which has been used by the Govt. for fixation of pay should be increased from the existing factor of 2.57 to 3.7. The ratio of differences between the minimum pay and maximum pay may be maintained at the level of 1:8.
Scrapping of New Pension Scheme:
The demand of the Union which has been endorsed by the previous minister of Railway under UPA regime and the present Railway Minister should be considered and this NPS scheme which is thwarting the basic concept of the social security of the employees should be withdrawn.
The implementation of the allowance report :-
The report has already been submitted by the Committee constituted on this demand to the Government. Union urges to implement the same with immediate effect.
Withdraw the arbitrary Railway Board order dated 31-1-2017 :-
This order is a clear encroachment of the Govt. towards the Trade Union rights of Labour organization. Union out rightly reject this proposal and demand that this order which is proposed to debar safety supervisory staff from holding office bearers ship of the Union should be immediately withdrawn.
Filling up of vacancies and creation of posts for additional assets :-
As on date there are about 2.40 lakh posts are lying vacant in Railways. Adequate number of man power to meet the workload of additional assets are not got sanctioned. The short fall of the staff will have a negative impact for smooth and safe running of the train and further it will be leads to disastrous effect. It is therefore demanded that all the vacancies existing in Railways should be filled immediately and adequate number of post s needs to be created to meet the requirement of the operation of the additional assets.
Restore pre 7th CPC Bench Marking for MACP and promotion :-
The present instruction to certify the bench marking of very good factor to extend the benefit was MAPC and promotion to the staff is very detrimental and against the interest of career progress of the workers. Union demand that the pre 7th CPC bench marking should be restored.
- Regularize Course completed Act Apprentices and absorb Quasi Administrative staff.
- Stop privatization, outsourcing and dis-investment of Railway entity and activities.
- Implement agreed structure of Trackmen in 10:20:20:50 ratio and formulate beneficial promotional avenues for them.
- Upgrade Appex Level group C with staff to Gr. B Gazetted cadre.
- Implementation of recommendation of HPC Committee report accepted by Railway board on rest and duty hours of Running staff and other safety category staff.
- Stop amendment of labour laws and Trade Union acts which are detrimental to the interest of the workers and Trade Union activities.
