Unions Write Letter to Defence Minister Shri. Rajnath Singhji for Ordnance Factory Corporatisation
80,000 Defence Civilian Employees of the Ordnance Factories reject the appointment of the Consultant by Ministry of Defence for Corporatizing the Ordnance Factories.
Federations informed the Defence Minister that there will be serious labour unrest disturbing Defence production in case the consultants appointed by the Defence Ministry visits the Ordnance Factories and OFB Head Quarters.
Workforce of ordnance factories reject the decision of the government to appoint a consultant to assist the ministry of defence in its process of corporatisation of the ordnance factory board
ALL INDIA DEFENCE EMPLOYEES’ FEDERATION
INDIAN NATIONAL DEFENCE WORKERS’ FEDERATION
BHARTIYA PRATIRAKSHA MAZDOOR SANGH
(RECOGNIZED FEDERATIONS OF DEFENCE CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES)
Joint Circular No: 31/2020
Date: 10.07.2020
To,
All the affiliated Unions of
AIDEF, INDWF, BPMS
80,000 Defence Civilian Employees of the Ordnance Factories reject the appointment of the Consultant by Ministry of Defence for Corporatizing the Ordnance Factories.
Federations informed the Defence Minister that there will be serious labour unrest disturbing Defence production in case the consultants appointed by the Defence Ministry visits the Ordnance Factories and OFB Head Quarters.
Also Read: Incentive scheme for the employees of ordnance Factories Organisation
We have already informed you about our opposition and protest against the arbitrary decision taken by the DDP to appoint a consultant for recommending modalities for implementation of the Government decision of Corporatizing the Ordnance Factories. At present we have submitted a detailed representation to the Defence Minister against the decision of the Government to appoint a consultant in this regard. We have informed the Defence Minister that the entire workforce of the Ordnance Factories reject the appointment of the Consultant by Ministry of Defence for Corporatizing the Ordnance Factories. We have also informed the Defence Minister that there will be serious labour unrest disturbing Defence production, in case the consultants appointed by the Defence Ministry visits the Ordnance Factories and OFB Head Quarters. A copy of the Joint letter dated 10-07-2020 addressed to the Defence Minister is enclosed herewith for your information and informing the employees. We are also enclosing a Press release in this regard which you may release to the local News papers/ National News papers at your state / Centre and also to local TV channels and ensure our news get wide coverage.
(C. SRIKUMAR)
GENERAL SECRETARY AIDEF
(R. SRINIVASAN)
GENERAL SECRETARY INDWF
(MUKESH SINGH)
GENERAL SECRETARY BPMS
Copy also to
The General Secretaries,
CDRA, NPDEF, AIBDEF,
DGOF HQ Employees Associations and IOFSOA.
ALL INDIA DEFENCE EMPLOYEES’ FEDERATION
INDIAN NATIONAL DEFENCE WORKERS’ FEDERATION
BHARTIYA PRATIRAKSHA MAZDOOR SANGH
(RECOGNIZED FEDERATIONS OF DEFENCE CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES)
Ref. No: 17/AIDEF/INDWF/BPMS/20
Date: 10.07.2020
To,
Shri. Rajnath Singhji
Hon’ble Defence Minister Government of India,
South Block, New Delhi – 110 001.
Subject: Workforce of ordnance factories rejct the decision of the government to appoint a consultant to assist the ministry of defence in its process of corporatisation of the ordnance factory board.
Respected Sir,
Kindly refer to our letter dated 8-7-2020 addressed to the Secretary (DP) on the subject of HLOC Meeting scheduled on 16-7-2020 to discuss about the proposed re-structuring of Ordnance Factory Board. In the said letter we have expressed our serious concern about the manner in which the DDP is dealing with such a major policy matter of Corporatizing the Ordnance Factories which has far reaching implications on the Defence preparedness of our Country and the service conditions of the Employees who were recruited through various selection process/competitive examination and appointed as Central Government Employees /Defence Civilian Employees. This is a clear violation of the past written assurance given to the Federations by the Ministry of Defence.
Also Read: Kelkar Committee had recommended that “Ordnance Factories should be corporatized…
On the one side the DDP in its HLOC meeting notice is mentioning as proposed restructuring of Ordnance Factory Board and on the other side have arbitrarily published a notification for Expression of Interest cum Request for Proposal (EOI cum RFP) for Selection of Consultant for providing strategic and implementation management consulting services to assist the Ministry of Defence in the process of corporatisation of the Ordnance Factory Board. This decision of the DDP is totally illegal, since it is in violation of the settlement reached in the matter in the presence of the Chief Labour Commissioner (Central) on 21-08-2019. The relevant portion of the settlement reached in the presence of CLC (C) is given below for your ready reference.
“In view of the above contention of both office bearers of federation and representative from Ministry of Defence, it was felt that there should be bilateral discussions at the level of senior officers i.e. Secretarv(DP) so that all those concerns expressed by the Office Bearers can be properly heard and discussed, so it was requested to officials from Ministry of Defence who are present today in the meeting to arrange a discussion at the level of Ministry on priority basis. It was also requested to office bearers of Federation that all efforts to resolve the issue has been initiated by the conciliation officers so the they may consider to withdraw the strike so that continuous dialoaue/discussions can be carried out both at bilateral and tripartite level. The Union representatives expressed that Ministry of Defence also may be requested to consider to withhold the proposal of corporatisation. In this regard, it has already been requested to discuss and address the issues involved in the matter at the bilater al level.
It was also requested to both office bearers of Federations and officials of Ministry of Defence to apprise about the outcome of the meeting/decision at bilateral level. Next date will be fixed after getting feedback as above in the matter”.
In violation of the above agreement the Department of Defence Production has arbitrarily floated an EOI cum RFP for implementation of the process of Corporatisation of the Ordnance Factory Board by appointing a Consultant. This amounts to an unfair labour practice on the part of MoD/DDP.
Apart from the above, we are of the considered view that any private consultant involved in this task will expose the Defence secrets of the country, since there is no non-disclosure provision in the RFP floated by the Government. Therefore there is all possibilities of the consultant leaking vital information’s to people who are hostile to the interest of the nation.
Accordingly, in preference of the facts brought out above, the entire workforce of the Ordnance Factories reject the decision of the Government to appoint a Consultant for implementation of Corporatization of the Ordnance Factories. Moreover we wish to inform your honour that there will be serious Labour unrest resulting in disturbance of Defence production in case the consultants appointed by the Defence Ministry visits the Ordnance Factories and OFB Hqrs., because the employees are very much agitated and they are vehemently opposing the move of the Government.
In view of the above, we request you to kindly intervene in the matter and arrange to issue instructions for withdrawal of the above mentioned RFP floated by the DDP and also to withdraw the decision of Corporatizing the Ordnance Factories which is against the Defence preparedness and National Security of our country and also against the interest of the 80,000 committed and dedicated workforce of the Indian Ordnance Factories. Awaiting for your favourable decision please.
Thanking you,
sd/-
(C. SRIKUMAR)
GENERAL SECRETARY AIDEF
sd/-
(R. SRINIVASAN)
GENERAL SECRETARY INDWF
sd/-
(MUKESH SINGH)
GENERAL SECRETARY BPMS
Source: bpms