india

Updated: Oct 14, 2019 09:14 IST

Around 20,000 employees of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) will begin an indefinite on Monday over revision of wages and other demands.

The strike comes after weeks of talks between the employees union and the management failed to reach an agreement. The employees union of HAL, a public sector major, had alleged that the company was showing discrimination between workers and officers.

On Sunday, HAL administration said the workers union decided to go ahead with the strike despite the management making “all out efforts”. The employees union though said that the management refused to agree to their “reasonable” demands.

Last week, the employees union—the All India HAL Trade Unions Coordination Committee announced the decision of the strike and said it was forced to do so because of the “adamant” attitude of the management.

The HAL union has sent a notice to all its locations asking employees to join the strike from Monday. HAL is headquartered in Bengaluru.

There have been negotiations between the employees union and the management since 2016 over a new pay structure that was to come into effect from January 1, 2017. The negotiations didn’t bring any result with the management accusing the employees union of making “unreasonable demands” and the union saying that there was disparity between the settlement for workers and executives.

“The unions unfortunately have adopted a recalcitrant approach and did not accept the offer and decided to resort to indefinite strike,” HAL said in a statement.

The HAL release said that the wage negotiation panel told the union about the strike jeopardising the interest of the employees and the nation. The management had made a similar appeal earlier this month invoking national interest and the setback the company will suffer due to a strike.

Suryadev Chandrashekhar, general secretary of the committee, had said that the salary revisions for workers were only partial. Chandrashekhar had also said there was no need for the company to talk about national interest. If their contention is that we are against the national interest, they are also equally responsible for this,” he said.