Thousands of contract workers of the Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) on Friday launched an indefinite strike across the 11 coal producing areas of the State-owned SCCL spread in six districts to press for their long-pending demands including hike in wages, job security and all statutory benefits.
Rallies, meetings and protest demonstrations marked the first day of the indefinite strike by the workers owing allegiance to the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of the SCCL Contract Workers’ Unions in various parts of the coal belt region.
An overwhelming number of the nearly 24,000 contract workers struck work in various underground coal mines, opencast projects, workshops, exploration wing and several other departments in pursuit of their demands, JAC sources said.
Leaders of various constituent unions of the JAC claimed that the coal mining and other allied activities were hit across the coal belt region due to the strike on the first day.
The JAC’s main demands include immediate increase of wages of SCCL’s contract workers on a par with the Coal India wages or as per the GO No 60 of the State government pertaining to hike in wages of contract/outsourced workers, regularisation of the services of contract workers and implementation of “assurances” given by the SCCL management to the JAC on February 9, 2022.
The first day of the indefinite strike saw dharnas and rallies by contract workers in Kothagudem, Koyagudem and Manuguru of Bhadradri Kothagudem district, Goleti in Kumaram Bheem Asifabad district, Mandamarri and Srirampur in Mancherial district, Ramagundam in Peddapalli district.
The striking workers staged a road roko in the coal town of Bhupalpally of Jayashankar Bhupalpally district, formed a human chain in Ramagundam-II area in Peddapalli district.
Meanwhile, the JAC of the SCCL contract workers’ unions has given a “Chalo Assembly” call on September 13 to press for its charter of demands.
