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Durgapur Steel Plant
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Durgapur, Feb. 1: Workers at the Durgapur Steel Plant’s coke oven unit struck work today protesting non-payment of cash incentives for the past two months.
Around 1,100 workers owing allegiance to Citu, Intuc and INTTUC did not work the morning shift, which begins at 6am, prompting the plant management to hold a meeting with the unions. The strike was called off at 6.30pm.
B.R. Kanungo, the chief of communications at DSP, said: “The workers called off the strike this evening following assurance from the management that their grievance would be looked into. Another meeting will be held tomorrow to find a solution.”
The DSP unit produces 5,000 tones of fuel coke daily from coal. The coke is used in the blast furnaces of the steel plant to generate heat.
While the DSP authorities said the performance-based incentive was not given as the coke oven employees could not meet their target, the unions said the workers were hindered by “poor infrastructure”.
“The workers at the coke oven unit have not got the cash incentive since December because of the management’s fault. The workers could not meet the production target because of poor infrastructure. Many ovens are not working and coal supply is erratic. This is why the workers could achieve only 89 per cent of the target,” Arun Chowdhury, the convener of the Citu-affiliated union at the plant, had said earlier today.
According to DSP sources, each worker has to push coal into an oven 300 times per day. “An employee will be entitled to incentive only if he exceeds his quota,” an official said.
The assistant secretary of the Intuc-affiliated union, Debasish Chowdhury, had said in the morning that workers at the other units of the plant got incentives ranging from Rs 663 to Rs 3,048 in December. “But those working in the coke oven, wheel and axle units and the section mill did not get any incentive.”
“We do not support stopping of production but we cannot allow the management to deprive the workers. The workers could not perform to the best of their abilities because of the negligence of the authorities,” Chowdhury added.
A senior DSP official said: “The incentive was not given to the coke oven employees because they could not meet their target. The incentives are performance-oriented.”
The authorities said there was no impact on the production of steel because of the flash strike as the plant had a buffer stock of coke. Work in the other units such as the basic oxygen plant, steel-melting shop, wheel and axle unit, blast furnace, pig-casting machine unit, raw material handling plant, merchant mill and loading and unloading units went on as usual.
The official said the furnaces at the coke oven unit consumed around 2,000 tonnes of fuel coke daily. “But we always have a buffer stock of 3,000 tonnes that can sustain us for two days,” he said.
Asked why the Trinamul-affiliated INTTUC joined the agitation despite Mamata Banerjee’s order that her party members refrain from disruptive tactics, Arun Nandy, the secretary of the union’s DSP unit, said: “Workers irrespective of their party affiliations took part in the agitation. Their protest is justified.”
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