Coal news and updates

CIL unions to meet on Dec 17 on disinvestment

December 15: Even as the government has reportedly deferred the disinvestment of Coal India Ltd (CIL) until January 2015, the CITU-backed All India Coal Workers’ Federation (AICWF) urged for participation of four other unions in the proposed strike in January against ‘denationalisation and disinvestment’.

“We have asked the other unions to take a decisive stance. A meeting of all the unions is to be held on December 17,” a senior leader of AICWF told ICMW.

AICWF has already called a day-long strike on January 13, 2015.

He further said that there was nothing to cheer about in the government’s decision to defer its disinvestment programme.

“This may be due to the market conditions. But when they have tabled the Ordinance Bill, thereby paving way for de-nationalisation, we don’t see any significance in slight deferment of the disinvestment plan,” he said.

“Our demand is that the government must stop both disinvestment and de-nationalisation,” he said.

Earlier, four CIL unions had announced to hold a strike on November 24 but had withdrawn the same following differences over holding talks with the coal ministry.