BSNL employees to go on strike from Feb 18

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, February 15

A state-level meeting of members of all unions and associations of BSNL was conducted at the BSNL district office near Bharat Nagar here on Friday.

During the meeting, the executive members decided that if the pending demands of BSNL employees and retired employees were not fulfilled, they would observe three-day strike from February 18.

Speaking at the meeting, Balbeer Singh, state secretary of the union, said, “All BSNL union members have been putting forward their genuine demands, including revision in the pay scale from January 1, 2017, 4G spectrum, pension share, revision in salaries and pension and revision in pensions, but the Union Government did not take any concrete steps to fulfil our demands till now.”

Balbeer Singh added, “The Union Government stated that it cannot revise salaries as BSNL is running into losses. But the reality is that the government is busy leveraging support to the private telecom companies and extending all sorts of favours to them at the expense of BSNL. There have been number of meetings conducted with the top officials of the telecom ministry but to no avail.”

“We have been protesting against the tacit stance of union government for more than two years now but latter did not pay any heed to our genuine demands. The government must provide permanent solution to our problems. Now, we are left with no alternative but to intensify our struggle further,” he added.