Coal India sets 19% minimum guarantee benefit for 'National Coal Wage Agreement'

Breaking the stalemate on wage negotiations Coal India Limited (CIL) and the four central trade unions Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS), and the Central Industrial Trade Union (CITU), on 3rd January 2023 have inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) recommending 19% Minimum Guaranteed Benefit (MGB) to its 2.38 lakh non-executive employees as part of the ongoing National Coal Wage Agreement –XI (NCWA-XI).

MGB of 19% is on the emoluments as of 30th June 2021 which include basic pay, variable dearness allowance, special dearness allowance and attendance bonus.

The Telangana based Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) is the other signatory to the MoU. A total of around 2.82 lakh employees of both the state owned coal entities, CIL and SCCL, who were on the rolls of the company as of 1st July 2021, would be the beneficiaries. SCCL’s employees account for close to 44,000.

The recommendation was reached in the eighth meeting of Joint Bipartite Committee for the Coal Industry-XI held at CIL’s corporate headquarters in Kolkata on 3 January.

A formal pact for the eleventh version of NCWA, effective from 1st July 2021 for a period of five years, would be finalized after deliberations on remaining issues other than MGB are concluded.

The four CTUs have taken a lead in finalizing the MGB amicably. CIL is having a harmonious industrial relations and the unions are also cognizant of the importance of achieving the current’s fiscal’s production target.