Trade unions oppose Tangedco’s proposal to outsource

CHENNAI: Trade unions in Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) were shocked by the utility's proposal to hold negotiations on implementing an outsourcing policy, abolishing unutilised posts and considering the scale of pay of the State government for employees to be recruited in future.

After the unions threatened to conduct a token strike on January 10 over the delay in conducting wage revision talks, Tangedco held a talk with the unions on January 9 and handed over its proposal for revision of wages, work allocation and staff/pattern with effect from December 1, 2019.

TNEB Employees Federation general secretary A Sekkizhar said that this was the first time the state electricity board is pushing for cutting down jobs, abolishing the posts and outsourcing. "Out of the total vacancies of 56,000, Tangedco wanted to outsource 50 per cent of the vacancies. In the rest of the vacancies, it wanted to recruit new employees on the state government's scale of pay. They wanted to abolish unutilised posts to cut down vacancies. We are strongly opposed to it," he said.

He said that the unions had sought a pay hike of 20 per cent to 30 per cent during the meeting but Tangedco’s proposal has mentioned a hike of five per cent citing the State Transport Undertakings. He said that the utility did not want the unions to hold wage negotiations for the Class I and II officers citing that they are not covered under Industrial Disputes Act. The officers would get pay revisions based on the state pay commission recommendations.

PMK founder Dr S Ramadoss hit out at Tangedco for proposing to implement outsourcing and cutting down on vacancies by abolishing utilised posts. "These two suggestions are regressive and unacceptable,” he said.