Agitation by the ruling Trinamool Congress-affiliated contractual workers’ union held up operations at the NBCC-controlled Hindustan Steelworks Construction Ltd (HSCL) in Kolkata for nearly a month.

The situation took a serious turn on Wednesday morning as the company CFO MC Bansal had to be hospitalised following a night-long gherao.

Soham Roy, a leader of HSCL Contractual Employees Union (HCEU), denied there was any gherao and said they were merely “discussing” the fate of the 180-odd employees whose contract was set to expire soon.

HSCL currently has 25 permanent and 480 contractual workers at its corporate office in Kolkata. Of the contractual staff, 300 are directly hired by HSCL. The remaining 180 were recruited through a staffing agency.

According to Neelesh Shah, MD, HSCL, as the contract for 180 third-party recruits is scheduled to end in October, the union swung into action to protect the jobs. The company has written to the Chief Minister's Office, labour commissioner and the Police apprising them of the situation.

HSCL was a sick Steel Ministry undertaking till April 2017, when NBCC acquired 51 per cent stake, turning it into a subsidiary. The residual shares in HSCL are owned by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

Following the restructuring , a proposal to shift the corporate office from Kolkata to Delhi was made earlier this year. However, the office relocation plan was cancelled in the face of series of agitations by the employees’ union for over two months.

“We had multiple rounds of discussion in the presence of the State Labour Commissioner and in August 2018, we reached an agreement to drop our plan of relocating corporate office from Kolkata,” he said.

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