This time, the Rourkela Mazdoor Sabha (RMS) will be the first choice for the Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) workers in the coming union elections to be held on October 15, asserted RMS union election campaign committee chairman Ananad Mohanty in a Press briefing here on Tuesday.
Mohanty said the RMS was recognised for 28 years at a stretch as a recognised union and during the period, it took many historic steps with the signing of several agreements for the interest of the working class in the RSP.
Since 1995 one union, the Rourkela Shramik Sangh (RSS), has been getting elected as a recognised union. But the workers have the bitter experience under it. In the last 19 years, instead of adding a single privilege to the workers’ benefit, many were rather eliminated which were introduced by the RMS, lamented Mohanty. He said that the RSS is polarised in two groups and each group is busy to get its own recognition. Similarly on the Rourkela Ispat Karakhana Karmachari Sangh (RIKKS), an affiliated body of BMS, Mohanty said while their local leaders are saying one thing, the national leaders are telling just the reverse.
Citing the example of NJCS, Mohanty said while the SAIl management was conspiring to enhance the NJCS agreement tenure to ten years from five years, the RMS leaders and other NJCS member unions opposed it. But the RIKKS leaders misled the RSP workers with fake and imaginary facts and figures.
Similarly while meeting Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for mines renewal, the SAIl Chairman said in Bhubaneswar that the SAIl had plan to upgrade the Rourkela Ispat General Hospital to a medical college hospital (MCH), but the Union Steel Minister in his recent visit to Rourkela said there was no plant for the MCH. So the RSP workers understand the double standards of their leaders, said Mohanty. He also criticized the CITU with examples of the gap between their works and words. So Mohanty is optimistic of his union’s victory. If it gets recognized, then the foremost priority would be to upgrade IGH to a MCH and restore the privileges of the workers which were taken back in last 19 years, he asserted.
Among others RMS leaders BB Sahoo, Gunanidhi Bal, Pravakar Champatiray, Niranjan Samal, Satya Behera, Pramod Das and Asit Das were present.