Trade unions have demanded a whopping 50 per cent pay hike by Coal India Ltd (CIL) in the forthcoming National Coal Wage Agreement-IX. The five-year pact will be brought into effect from July 1, 2011. CIL effected a 24 per cent salary hike in the last edition of wage pact.

According to the CIL sources, opening the discussion at the two-day joint bi-partite consultative committee (JBC) meeting at Bhubaneswar between December 11 and 12, the trade union nominees demanded 50 per cent hike against 10 per cent offered by CIL in NCWA-IX.

“Considering the economic downturn and the hardship faced by consumers, we requested the trade unions to accept 10 per cent hike in NCWA-IX. Unions, though appreciated the challenges before the company, felt that it would not be possible for them to accept anything below 24 per cent hike, as offered in NCWA-VIII,” a CIL source told Business Line .

The unions it may be recalled forced the coal major to fork out Rs 21,000 festival bonus to each of nearly 3.63 lakh workers earlier this year. The deal had cost the company nearly Rs 145 crore more than the initial provisioning of Rs 620 crore. CIL initially offered Rs 17,000 each, against Rs 15,000 each in 2010.

CIL provisioning

Meanwhile, the demanded wage hike may also fall short of a lump sum provisioning of Rs 7,000 each per month as effected by the coal major beginning July-September 2011.

“The provisioning formula was based on the total wage impact during the last agreement,” the Director Finance, Mr A.K. Sinha, told newspersons announcing the second quarter results.

>pratim@thehindu.co.in

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