Defence civil employees federation to go on indefinite strike

Bengaluru: Voicing their opinion strongly against the Union government's decision to corporatise the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), three defence federations are threatening to go on an indefinite strike from July 26. A formal letter in this regard has been sent to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

"A broad based unity was built-up by the Defence Employees Federations to fight against the arbitrary, biased and one-sided decision taken by the Cabinet on June 16, to splinter / slice the 220-year-old 41 Indian Ordnance Factories into seven corporations. A joint meeting of the federations held on June 27 unanimously decided to revive the indefinite strike plan which has been deferred based on a conciliation settlement reached between the Ministry of Defence and the Federations of Defence Civilian Employees on September 9," the federations announced.

The three civil defence federations added that while they kept their word by deferring the strike, the Ministry of Defence was violating the agreement by proceeding further on its actions by appointing a consultant as part of its larger plans to implement its recommendations through Empowered Group of Ministers. "This is going to have far reaching implications on the national security, defence preparedness and the future of 76 thousand devoted and committed work force and their family."

"Our complaint to CLC(C) about the violation of the Ministry of Defence has not yielded any result and on June 15 CLC(C) abruptly closed the conciliation proceedings on June 16 which enables the government to take its decision. Considering this unhelpful attitude of the government the federations have now taken the following decisions."

Federations and unions will serve a strike notice on July 8 and commence it from 6 am on July 26.

"Since it is a revival of the deferred indefinite strike no strike ballot is required to be taken and no six-week notice is to be given. Model strike notice revival intimation letter will be forwarded to all the unions for issuing a strike notice. The Federations will issue joint strike notice and independent strike notice to the government," the statement read.

Letters seeking support from all the Chief Ministers and leaders of political parties, members of the Parliamentary Defence Standing Committee etc will be issued both jointly by the federations and also by the local Joint Action Committees in the respective states.

"Unions of other directorates to observe solidarity and support programmes including one day strike to be decided by the Federations. National level campaigning programmes to be conducted from 08/07/2021 will be finalised shortly. The joint decision taken by the Federations is conveyed to the Defence Minister, Secretary (DP) and Defence Secretary vide our Letter dated 29.06.2021," the statement said.