KOCHI: The FACT Workers Organisation (FWO), which represents about 150 out of 844 employees of public sector Fertilizers And Chemicals Travancore (FACT), has decided not to sign the long-term pay revision agreement and conciliatory settlement.
In a statement issued here, FWO has listed out the demands for signing the wage revision agreement. These include payment of arrears from April 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022, in this financial year itself; a recommendation by the management-employees joint committee within the next six months on the payment of arrears from January 1, 2017, to March 31, 2021; the payment of paternity leave, performance-related pay (PRP), medical assistance for those who retired, etc will be made in a time-bound manner, among others.
The FWO said FACT has been running in profits since April 1, 2018. “The Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) guideline stipulates that the PSU must be recording profit before tax (PBT), and not operating profits before tax (OPBT). So, the management’s argument that FACT reported profits through the sale of land will not stand,” said the statement.
When other unions signed the agreement on December 26, the FWO chose to stay away, citing its apprehensions about the terms of the pact. Other trade unions of FACT and the management are expected to sign the final conciliatory papers on January 4.