Digboi: Workers at the Digboi Gopaneri LPG Bottling Plant, managed by Assam Oil Division (AOD) in the Tinsukia district on Thursday, resorted to tool-down agitations affecting the normalcy of the plant for two subsequent shifts.
Mineral Oil Workers Union affiliated with CITU carried out the agitation against the anti-working policies adopted by the plants.
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The protesting workers thronged in front of the main gate and alleged that the AOD-managed Gopaneri bottling plant in collusion with the contractor have been adopting anti workers policy violating the provisions of the Factory and Labour Laws arbitrarily.
During the protest, the former Secretary of the union Jintu Borah alleged that the management of the plant arbitrarily imposed restriction upon 68 contractual workers engaged in Holace Handling Unit to continue with their usual duty shifts.
‘The Contractor and the management without prior and formal notice have decided to engage the inexperienced and semi skill hired from outside in lieu of the long serving workers during their various leaves – one of the the workers’ rightful claims’, said Borah.
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He further added that the permanent contractual workers serving longer than decades earlier were managing the jobs in one of the shifts as overtime in case of leave of the fellow workers.
Panicked workers also raised serious concerns about safety protocols, stating the potential risks of deploying inexperienced individuals in a sensitive and hazardous environment.
Moreover, the workers of the plant condemned and denounced the anti-workers policy of the management and contractor terming the act as malafide, prejudiced, and anti worker’s intention.
Subsequently, the workers said that they would drag the matter to the legal threshold for violating the Factory and Labour Laws thus bringing justice once and for all.
Notably, there are 125 contractual workers in various sections of the plant, 99 of them have been serving for more than 23 years gaining abundant job experience.
While responding to the queries of NorthEast Now , the Duliajan based contractor of the firm P Phukan said that he had delegated the authority to one of his partners Medini Moran to oversee the workers’ affairs.
‘I cannot comment on the issue much as I am not well aware of the development there ‘, said the owner of the firm adding ‘ I just pay in aggregate the salary of the workers to Mroran who further pays the workers, Duliajan added.
It is noteworthy that modus operandi of the AOD managed bottling plant have been under scanner for various reasons like security lapses, cylinders smuggling and black marketing, undue collection of money at security gate etc over a period of time.