Hyderabad: TS Transco and Genco have requested the Commissioner of Labour to intervene in a joint meeting of the Telangana State Power Employees Joint Action Committee (TSPEJAC) to prevent the proposed strike by the staff from April 17.
After a massive dharna carried out at Vidyut Soudha on March 24 which saw the participation of around 30,000 employees, the management invited unions for another round of talks on various demands.
However, the emergency meeting landed a decision to go on strike as negotiations between the management and TSPEJAC failed.
On Thursday, the management of the power utility approached the labour commissioner on demands related to pay revision, allowances and others.
Chairman and managing director of TS-Genco and TS-Transco D Prabhakar Rao addressed a letter to the Commissioner of Labour informing the strike notice served by the JAC with a request to arrange a bipartite meeting with the body and the management of utilities for settlement of demands.
Prabhakar Rao highlighted that the employees JAC had proposed a strike on the revision of pay and allowances of employees, artisans and pensioners, implementation of GPF in place of EPF to employees recruited between February 1, 1999, and August 31, 2004, on a par with state government employees and several other issues related to employees and artisans.
Stating that resorting to strikes would cause major inconvenience to energy consumers in Telangana, the CMD said strikes were prohibited and also against the provisions of the Essential Services Maintenance Act.
Prabhakar Rao also brought to the notice of the Labour Commissioner that existing salaries paid to employees of the power utilities were on the higher side when compared to the pay of other Corporations and PSUs of the state government.
Meanwhile, the JAC is going ahead with its plans to strike work from April 17 and holding meetings with employees and artisans to prepare for the protest.
On the other hand, Telangana Vidyut Employees Union and Itehad Electricity Contract Employees Union served notice to go on strike from April 25.
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