CHENNAI: The protest by contract workers of Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) is set to continue as the third round of tripartite talks failed on Tuesday.
The talks were held here in the presence of Regional Labour Commissioner (RLC) MM Jegannatha Rao and Assistant Commissioner P Sivarajan.
The trade union representatives urged the NLC management to fulfil the settlement plans announced on June 16, 2008 and October 30, 2010.
“In the earlier settlement, the NLC management had agreed to absorb 5,000 employees into the Industrial Co-operative Service Society Limited (INDCO Serve),” said K Venkatesan, general secretary, AITUC contract workers wing, NLC.
“This has not been fulfilled. Similarly, we demanded a Provident Fund Trust for NLC contract employees be set up in Neyveli as part of the second settlement but that was also ignored,” he said.
He said that there has not been direct recruitment in NLC for the past 20 years though 13,000 employees retired during the period. “Their posts were filled by the temporary contract workers. We demand that all 13,000 contract workers be absorbed into the permanent stream”, he said.
The next round of talks will be held on May 28.