Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, June 24:
Asserting that they have been victimised on several counts, Progressive Construction Limited Workers' Union which is a united body of the labourers currently engaged in the construction work of the Thoubal Multipurpose Project has resolved to cease work until their various demands are met.
Speaking to reporters at a press meet in the office of the Citizens Concern for Dams and Development (CCDD), chairman of the Progressive Construction Limited Workers' Union Kaikho Jajo disclosed that its members working under the Progressive Construction Company are being victimised and deprived by the company in different ways.
The company, instead of listening to the complaints of the workers, threatened to remove the particular workers who lodge the complaints from the engagement.
Taking part in the press meet, auditor of the workers' union L Open disclosed that even as the company has been providing several benefits to non-local labourers, it has been openly discriminating against local labourers by denying them any benefits entitled to their non-local colleagues.
The local workers do not enjoy any benefit of medical leave, bonus payment or retirement provident fund.
Moreover, the company has been paying unequal wages to the non-local and Manipuri labourers.
The variation in the wages is so sharp that a Manipuri supervisor gets the same monthly wage as given to a helper, he claimed.
Other forms of favouritism exercised by the company towards non-Manipuri labourers include giving leaves and exempting them from routine work without any plausible reason, refraining them from entering the work site during rainy seasons etc, elaborated L Open.
The union's joint secretary Thanu Shaiza who has been working in the project since 1992 said that about 60 women have been working there.
These women have not received their wages for the months of April and May thereby causing them great misery, she conveyed.
Informing that no identity cards have been issued to the labourers working under the project either by the company or the Government, Kaikho Jajo disclosed that no legal contract was signed on their engagement in the construction work.
In the absence of such contract, the company has been victimising, discriminating and depriving the labourers in various forms at will.
He further lamented that there has been no remedial action from the authority even as a written complaint detailing the various problems being endured by the workers was submitted to the Labour Commissioner.
Informing that their demands include treatment of all labourers uniformly, payment of monthly wages on time, provision of medical leave, casual leave, bonus, provident fund facilities, formulation and enforcement of retirement policy, construction of a resting shed for the workers and adequate provision of food and water on time, the union chairman stated that they would cease work until their demands are met by the construction company.
The union also appealed to the non-local labourers to suspend work and to join the strike.