Employees of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) have accused the Company of following discriminatory practices. The employees’ union of HAL recently called for a hunger strike to protest against the same and demand wage revision at the earliest. About 18000 HAL employees from seven states across the country are participating in this indefinite strike, bringing work to a halt at the Company.
Employees have asked their demands to be fulfilled by 2 July, failing which they threaten to resort to more aggressive means, such as a gherao.
Apparently, the executives of HAL were given a 15 per cent hike in basic salary and 35 per cent hike in incentives, whereas the workmen only received 10 per cent fitment and 18 per cent incentives.
The union complains that the workers’ representation is not given any consideration at HAL, as they have been protesting in vain for almost two years on the matter of wages. The workers further complain that while the wage issue of the executives was attended to in 2017 itself, nothing was done to resolve the wage issue for the workers.
However, HAL maintains that the demands of the workers are unfair and unsound. It states that matters can be negotiated, and that about nine rounds of discussions have already taken place, but the workers need to be more rational, realistic and feasible with their demands. It claims that the salaries of the executives was revised in 2017 after a gap of ten years, and therefore, the workers’ demand for wage revision at par with the executives is not justified.
