Farmers Movement Archive

Vizag Steel Plant workers to go on strike, to learn from farmers’ agitation

Farmer leader Rakesh Tikait may be invited by workers of the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), also known as Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, to draw lessons from over 100-day long farm agitation as they have decided to go on an indefinite strike in protest against the central government’s move to go in for 100 per cent disinvestment in the steel plant through privatisation.“We are studying their model of agitation and if possible, we shall adopt their strategy to wage a long-drawn battle to prevent privatisation of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant. We have invited the farmers’ leaders to Visakhapatnam on March 28 for a meeting with steel plant workers on how to go about with future course of action,” the trade union leader said.A decision to go on an indefinite strike effect was taken at the meeting of the Vizag Steel Plant Parirakshana Samithi, a joint action committee of the trade unions late on Tuesday night.Read more: Vizag steel privatisation plan snowballs into political issue in Andhra Pradesh“We shall serve the strike notice on the RINL management on Thursday. All the workers will go on indefinite strike on a date which will be decided later. We have also decided to constitute struggle committees with employees working in various departments of the steel plant and launch a campaign till March 19, preparing the workers for a long-drawn agitation,” J Ayodhya Ramu, president of Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the recognised trade union of the RINL, said.The meeting decided to hold a dharna in front of the steel plant on March 15. “On March 16 and 17, representatives of the trade unions will go to Delhi to represent our issue with floor leaders of all political parties and request them to take up our case in Parliament,” Ramu said.The JAC also decided to conduct a big rally in the name of “Karmika Garjana” (roar of the workers) at Trishna Grounds near the Steel City in Visakhapatnam on March 20. It would be attended by prominent national trade union leaders including G Sanjeeva Reddy of INTUC, Tapan Kumar Sen of CITU, Amarjeet Kaur of AITUC and Surendranath Pandey of BMS.The steel plant workers have intensified their agitation following a statement made by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitaraman in the Lok Sabha on Monday, asserting that the Centre would go in for 100% disinvestment of Government of India’s shares in the RINL having a production capacity of 6.3 million tonnes per annum, products of which are used in the construction sector.The RINL has over 17,000 permanent employees and another 14,000 contract employees.The main reason for the disinvestment, according to the RINL management, was that the steel plant had been consistently making losses over a period of time. In 2017-18, it suffered a loss of ₹1,369 crore. Though it could recover briefly by making a net profit of ₹97 crore in 2018-19, it plunged into huge losses to the extent of ₹3,910 crore in 2019-20.The trade unions, however, say the losses were just an excuse to hand over the project to a private company. “The losses are mainly due to operational expenses, besides general slum in the steel market. The steel plant doesn’t have captive iron ore mines and it is forced to buy the iron ore at a higher cost, compared to the private steel plants which have their own captive mines,” the CITU leader said.While the cost of iron ore for private steel plants is around ₹1,500 per tonne, the RINL is buying the ore at not less than ₹5,000 per tonne. “We need 10 million tonnes of ore every year; which means the RINL is spending ₹3,500 crore in excess only on ore, compared to the private plants,” Ramu said.He said this financial year (2020-21) ending March 31, the losses of the steel plant are going to come down to ₹1,500 crore. “The fact that the company is wiping out the losses to the tune of ₹2,400 crore shows the company is functioning efficiently. Where is the need to privatise it?” he asked.

Hindustan Times

10-03-2021

India