Threatening to go on indefinite strike against the Cabinet decision to split the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) into seven corporate entities, the three main recognized federations of defence civilian employees have jointly written a letter to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Secretary Defence Production (DP) Raj Kumar protesting against the “arbitrary, one sided and biased decision” in violation of all the previous written agreements and assurances and demanded it be withdrawn.
“It is astonishing that when negotiations are pending, conciliation process is inconclusive, in the absence of the federations in the conciliation meeting held on June 15, 2021, the Government has taken a hurried decision to corporatise the OFB into seven entities,” the federations said in the letter dated June 23.
On June 16, the Union Cabinet approved the corporatisation plan to turn OFB which has 41 factories into seven fully government owned corporate entities for better management and improve efficiency.
The letter stated that Secretary, DP has agreed to arrange a meeting with the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) to over see the coporatisation, to discuss about the alternate proposals given by the federations. “It is a clear case of betrayal by the Government, because Secretary, DP himself has asked the federations to give a viable alternate and robust proposal to MoD which would be submitted to the EGOM for a discussion with the federations, so that OFB could achieve the higher expectations of its customers, being in the Government set up itself,” it stated.
The federations strongly feel that the entire process to corporatise OFB is “stage-managed, hasty and took in a hurried manner, without any application of mind about the impact of this decision” on the defence preparedness of our country and also about the future and service conditions of 76,000 employees, the letter said.
The letter noted that employees were recruited as central government employees and as per Article 309 of the Constitution of India and there is no mention in their appointment letters that their status will be changed during the service period and will have to work in Corporation or Public Sector Undertakings (PSU).
Earlier, based on the based on the conciliation settlement reached on October, 09, 2020, the three recognized federations of OFB, namely, decided to defer the indefinite strike notice given by them.
The letter alleged that “without giving any importance” to the goodwill extended by the federations, “total injustice is meted out by the employees of OFB”, because the Government has “abruptly closed the door for negotiation by arbitrarily” deciding to corporatise the OFB. Due to this the federations have announced their plan to go on an indefinite strike. The three recognised federations as well as three other associations have called for a joint meeting on June 27 for broader unity to fight back against “the most dangerous decision taken” by the government, a joint circular issued on June 23 said.
