THE MESSAGE IS
LOUD AND CLEAR
AWAKE, ARISE,
UNITE
The 9th Federal Council of NFPE
held at Hyderabad from 9th to 13th June 2013, gave a
clarion call to the five lakhs Postal and RMS employees including Gramin Dak
Sevaks (GDS) to be ready for an indefinite strike, in case our demand for
setting up of seventh Central Pay Commission (CPC) and merger of DA with pay is
rejected by the Central Government. The conference in one voice also demanded
the Government to withdraw the Contributory Pension Scheme and scrap the
Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) Bill. It further
decided that even if Pay Commission is appointed, if the Government refuse to
include the revision of wages and service conditions of GDS in the term of
reference of the CPC and grant the DA merger benefit to GDS, entire employees
shall go on indefinite strike.
The Confederation of Central
Government Employees and Workers, the united fighting organisation of Central
Government Employees, in its 24th National Conference held at
Kolkata from 4th to 6th May 2013 has taken a historic
decision to go on indefinite strike demanding constitution of seventh CPC, DA
merger, scrapping of New Pension Scheme and the settlement of the 15 point
charter of demands. The decision of the Confederation clearly reflected the
aspiration and commitment of about 28 lakhs of Central Government Employees and
about 40 lakh Central Government Pensioners. Unlike in the past, this time, the
Confederation has rightly decided to project the GDS demands as one of the main
demands and in the 12th December 2012 strike the GDS participated in
the strike en-masse as per the call given by NFPE, even though the so-called
recognized union of GDS has not even given strike notice.
Finally, as in the past, as a
logical corollary, the Railway and Defence employees Federations have also
decided to go for an indefinite strike raising the 7th CPC and DA
merger demand. Due to conscious and persistent effort made by Confederation,
especially its versatile and undisputed leader Com. S. K. Vyas Ji, a joint
meeting of AIRF, AIDEF and Confederation was arranged on 29th July
2013 and Joint Council of Action (JCA) is formed, the JCA decided to organize
various campaign programmes, culminating in indefinite strike. As a first step
it is decided to submit a letter to the Government listing out the demands and
also its time-bound settlement. The seven point charter of demands includes
setting up of 7th CPC, DA merger, compassionate appointment, regularization
of GDS and Casual Labourers, Scrapping of PFRDA Bill, removal of bonus
emolument ceiling, functioning of JCM and implementation of arbitration awards.
Even though in the past, the dominant leadership of the National Council JCM
has taken a stand that as GDS do not come under JCM, their demand cannot be
included, this time the Confederation and NFPE leadership could convince them
and they agreed for inclusion of GDS demands also.
Thus a situation has emerged
wherein the entire Central Government employees stands united and determined to
realize just and genuine demands. The message is loud and clear. Now it is the
duty and responsibility of each and every one of us to carry the message to the
grass-root level workers and build up broadest unity among the rank and file.
Once such a rock-like unity for struggle is achieved, no Government can reject
our justified demands. Time is short. Let us awake, arise and unite.
