Oil PSU officers strike deferred

Oil PSU officers defer proposed indefinite strike from 2nd Dec

The executives of public sector oil firms on Sunday called off their proposed indefinite strike from 2nd December following some tough negotiations, coupled with pressure from the government.
Unhappy at 40 to 200 per cent wage hike approved by the government earlier this month, the Oil Sector Officers Association (OSOA), which claims to represent 55,000 officers of 14 oil PSUs, had called an indefinite strike from 2nd December.
"The strike has been deferred for an indefinite period," an official said.
The association said in a statement later this evening that it decided to defer the strike after deliberating over the terror attacks in Mumbai.
With two days to go before the strike, which could have crippled the economy by halting oil and gas production and disrupting fuel supplies, Petroleum Secretary R S Pandey did some tough talking, contending that officers, being part of the decision-making process, could not resort to strikes.
Simultaneously, heads of the companies engaged their respective unions, telling the executives that the government had done its best in times of a global economic downturn.
Also they told the officers that together with perks and performance-related pay, their total remuneration was highly competitive.
They also held out the threat of disciplinary action if the officers went ahead with the strike.
While, on the one hand, Pandey refused to be blackmailed by the strike threat, on the other hand, he prepared a detailed contingency plans to keep operations going.
The official said while HPCL executives were never part of the strike calls, those of IOC, EIL and OIL withdrew subsequently.
Many in the ranks of the OSOA felt this was not the right time to resort to strikes when the nation was faced with the worst-ever terrorist strikes.
Finally, the OSOA leadership buckled under pressure and deferred the strike.
In its statement, the OSOA said that it would "observe two minutes' silence at 1030 hours on 2nd December at all the work centres."
Besides, the office bearers of the association would light candles at Gateway of India at 1230 hours on the same day and a rally would be organised to express solidarity, the OSOA said, while requesting the management of all the oil companies to provide necessary assistance.
It also expressed concern over the security of various installations of oil firms and the lacklustre attitude of the government and managements towards the security issue