Though an indefinite strike by around 20,000 employees of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) across its locations in India has affected the operations at the defence PSU, the company management has expressed confidence that it was competent to handle the issues internally.
The management has said that the wage revision issue for which the employees are striking has nothing to do with payment dues that the organisation is facing. Currently, HAL has an order book to the tune of Rs 60,000 crore, in addition to many orders in the pipeline. HAL assured that it was getting some of them.
“Out of HAL's total revenue, 24 per cent is labour cost. The company is planning to bring it down to less than 20 per cent. We will optimise our operations and eventually increase our top line growth and that will help us achieve this. It is a transient thing for us. There has not been even a single day's of salary delay for the employees due to payment dues from our customers," said C.B. Ananthakrishnan, director of Finance, HAL. "We have started receiving dues from different customers. The current scenario will not have any affect on production and operational effectiveness. There is a lot of confusion in the public domain, but we are confident of solving the issues with the employees. Our current task is to complete the immediate order of 83 LCAs (Light Combat Aircraft),” he added.
On the other hand, the All India HAL Trade Union Co-Ordination Committee (AIHALTUCC) has claimed that their strike was not illegal as being termed by the HAL management. It added that all the unions working with the company had served an advanced strike notice as per provisions under of the ID Act and the same had been brought to the notice of the Regional Labour Commissioner, who is also the Conciliatory Authority. “The HAL management had not given any reasonable offer in conformity with the other defence PSUs. We are demanding for the benefits on par with the other defence PSUs, which have arrived at the settlement, with five years periodicity in previous wage revisions of 2007-11 and 2012-16. The same PSUs, (which) entered into the wage settlement w.e.f January 1, 2017 with 10 years periodicity, have extended the benefits to its workers on par with the executives of the respective industry,” said Suryadevara Chandrashekhar, chief convener, AIHALTUCC.
He further claimed that during the 11th round of negotiations held on Saturday and Sunday, the HAL management did not come up with any reasonable offer. “Any wage revision should be an improvement in the earnings of the workmen, but if we calculate according to the management's offer, majority of workers will get less after the salary revision. We have never placed any unreasonable demands, but are demanding for a reasonable settlement of Wage Revision of Workmen,” added Chandrashekhar.
HAL has multiple production centres in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Koraput in Odisha, Korwa, Kanpur and Lucknow in UP and Nashik and three research and development (R&D) centres across the country. Experts observed that if the strike continued for a long duration, it would have a major impact on the company's production.
