Following failed talks with the management, almost 20,000 HAL employees began an indefinite strike and stayed away from work, sitting in protest outside their factories and offices across seven cities, demanding equitable wage revision.
All India HAL Trade Unions Coordination Committee (AIHALTUCC) had on Sunday, 13 October, announced the indefinite strike after talks with the management ended in failure.
"We are observing strike in all nine units of HAL all over India. More than 10,000 employees here (in Bengaluru) are on strike and as a result work has come to a standstill," the AIHALTUCC chief convener Suryadevara Chandrashekhar told news agency PTI.
Following talks between the management and the union on Sunday, a day before the strike was to commence, the union members rejected the management’s offer of a hike of 11 percent fitment benefit and 22 percent perks for 1 to 10 Scale and 20 percent perks for one scale on a conditional basis, to be confirmed by the MD once the nine units agree to unanimously accept the revisions. However, this did not go down well with the employees’ unions.
"Despite the management's concerted efforts towards bringing an amicable and early wage settlement, unions unfortunately have adopted a recalcitrant approach and did not accept the offer and decided to resort to indefinite strike; in spite of management's appeal not to resort to an indefinite strike and resolve the issue in a spirit of accommodation," the management said in a statement.
All nine units of the employees’ unions had issued a notice to the management about their intention to go on strike indefinitely from 14 October. The management had earlier called the workers’ demands ‘unsustainable and unrealistic.’
(With inputs from PTI)
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