CITU appeals to govt to protect interests of contract labour

Visakhapatnam: Representatives of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) Visakhapatnam district committee made a representation to the Member of Lok Sabha on the issues of non-implementation of various statutory provisions relating to contract labour working in Central Government as well as public sector industries in Visakhapatnam. They sought the Member of LS and chairman of Standing Committee on Labour, Textiles and Skill Development's intervention and appealed to them to ensure that the interests of contract labour be protected.

Some of the issues that were to the notice of the authorities include minimum wages, safety priorities, ESI remittance, holidays and bonus. According to the CITU representatives, contractors in Visakhapatnam Port Authority are paying only unskilled wages to the majority of 9,000 contract workers even though workers execute semi-skilled, skilled and highly skilled workers. They pointed out that the contractors are escaping from paying semi-skilled, skilled and highly skilled wages as there is no GO to that effect.

In HPCL, the contractors resorted to paying unskilled wages to semi-skilled, semi-skilled wages skilled and less than Rs 300 to unskilled workers where the minimum wage declared by the state is Rs 553 for unskilled workers. To get these wages the worker is forced to work for minimum 10 hours daily, the CITU representatives informed. There is no change in respect of contract workers in Hindustan Shipyard Limited (HSL) as no contractor is adhering to provisions of minimum wage declared by the Government, CITU Visakhapatnam district committee members pointed out.

Further, they pointed out that in BHEL, none of the contractors is paying minimum wages as per the GO issued in April 2022 and all the contractors resorted to implementing April 2021 GO wages alone. In Railways, the contractors paying skilled worker only Rs 500 paid instead of Rs 784, for semi -skilled worker only Rs 400 is paid instead of Rs 625 and to unskilled worker Rs 350 instead of Rs 581 and even in other public sectors, they mentioned that the situation is the same.

The other areas of focus included providing safety gear to contract workers, poor maintenance of equipment leading to fatal accidents. Despite several accidents recurring in the industries, the CITU representatives pointed out that no action was taken to protect the workers safety. Non-payment of bonus to contract workers, PF and ESI remittance and holiday wages were the other areas discussed. CITU Visakhapatnam district committee president KM Srinivas and general secretary RKSV Kumar, among others, were present at the media briefing held on Saturday.