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Port workers’ unions want the government to scrap the Major Port Authorities Bill, a few days after the Union Cabinet approved amendments based on the suggestions of the parliamentary standing committee.
The Major Port Authorities Bill, introduced in Parliament, seeks to convert the 11 major ports that are currently run as ‘trusts’ into ‘authorities’ in the biggest structural reform of the ports sector in more than five decades.
The proposed law seeks to give greater autonomy and flexibility to major ports and to professionalise their governance for speedier decision-making to help them compete with private ports.
“The amendments approved by the Cabinet on February 7 are bogus,” said T Narendra Rao, General Secretary, Water Transport Workers’ Federation of India.
The workers will hold a ten-day campaign between March 10 and 20 to press their demands, culminating in a day-long protest on March 21.
Workers’ unions say that the amendments to the Bill, cleared by the Cabinet, does not address their concerns relating to privatisation of major ports and protecting the workers’ interests.
Wage issues
“The Centre should withdraw the Major Port Authorities Bill which is aimed at converting the port trusts into corporate bodies under the guise of the authorities’ set-up by invoking various clauses written in the Bill and pave the way for the privatisation of major ports,” Narendra Rao told BusinessLine . The government should expedite action to complete the bi-partite wage negotiation committee process “to revise the wages and other service conditions of port and dock workers ensuring deserving hikes.” The wage revision is due from January 2017.
The unions are also demanding equal pay for workers engaged in same and similar work of that of regular workers and to regularise the contract workers engaged by port trusts and revise their wages at par with regular employees.
Other demands
A centrally-operated common pension fund should be evolved for all major ports to ensure uninterrupted pension payments in the emerging scenario.
Among other demands are filling up the vacant posts of Chairman, Deputy Chairman and Head of Departments at various major ports.
The government extended an olive branch to win over agitating workers by accepting some of their demands.
While the original Bill sought to reduce the labour representation on the port authority board to one from the two seats on the current board of trustees, the Cabinet decided to enlarge this to two board seats for serving employees.
Every person, who was receiving any retirement benefit from the board of trustees under the Major Port Trust Act, 1963, will continue to receive the same benefit from the port authority board, a government statement after the Cabinet decision, said.
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