BENGALURU: More than 80,000 employees of 41 ordnance factories across India, who had been on a tools-down strike since August 20, bringing production to a standstill, will resume work from Monday. A decision to this effect was taken by the federations leading the strike on Saturday.

The employees had called for a month-long strike in protest against the ministry of defence move to corporatise the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) and factories under it. Following meetings with multiple government representatives, including one with secretary (defence production) on Friday, federations leading the strike decided to resume work.

Friday’s meeting came two days after Rajan Verma, chief labour commissioner, met federations and defence ministry representatives. The federations that took the decision to call off the strike and resume work are All India Defence Employees Federation , Indian National Defence Workers Federation and Bharatiya Pratiraksha Mazdoor Sangh .

“Protests and other agitation will continue at all factories, but we’ve decided to resume work as the secretary assured continuous bilateral discussions. He also said no final decision on corporatisation has been taken,” AIDEF general secretary C Srikumar said.

“We’ll go on strike again if the assurances are not met,” Srikumar added. The decision to resume work will be a relief for the MoD as a month-long strike would have had a huge impact on the armed forces at a time OFB is lagging behind in production schedules.

