SAIL, RINL, NMDC Workers, Join Nationwide Strike

Thousands of workers of state-owned SAIL, RINL and NMDC on Monday joined the nationwide strike, affecting production at steel plants and mines.

Around 8,000 non-executive Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) workers out of 11,000 of the total did not come to work on Monday as part of the ongoing nationwide strike, a company official said. He further informed that production has been affected at the unit as only one furnace out of three is functional at the plant in Visakhapatnam. While one was already under maintenance, the second one has been shut down as a precautionary measure.

Rajesh Sandhu, Secretary of NMDC Sanyukt Khadaan Mazdoor Sangh that represents workers at the NMDC operated mines, said around 10,000 non-executive employees of the company are observing the protest. "Workers of NMDC mines and offices in Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana, are on strike today," he said. Work at important mining complexes like Bacheli in Chhattisgarh and Donimalai in Karnataka are completely closed, Sandhu added.

Besides RINL, workers of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) have also joined the protest, Steel Workers Federation of India (SWFI) said. "Thousands of SAIL workers across its plants and mines in states like Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal refrained from coming to work," SWFI's working President PK Das said, adding the association is assessing the impact of protest.

As many as 10 Central Trade Unions on Monday began a two-day nationwide strike to protest against the government's alleged wrong policies that are affecting farmers, workers and the general public. The strike notices have been given by the unions in various sectors, such as coal, steel, oil, telecom, postal, income tax, copper, banks, and insurance, among others. SAIL and RINL are steel making companies under the Ministry of Steel. NMDC is the country's largest iron ore mining company under the ministry.

(PTI)