58,000 public general insurance staffers to go on a two-day strike from July 27

To highlight wage revision woes and lack of Central government support to the industry, as many as 58,000 employees of public sector general insurance companies will go on a 2-day strike from July 27-28.
Mainly, staff of the New India Assurance Co. Ltd., (Mumbai), the Oriental Insurance Co. Ltd., (New Delhi), the National Insurance Co. Ltd., (Kolkata), and the United India Assurance Co. Ltd., (Chennai) will observe the strike.

Talking about their concerns, Lalit Suvarna, working president, General Insurance Employees Union (Western Zone) said that the last wage revision (valid for five years) was done in August 2012, and the next wage revision is still pending since August 2017 with the validity period ending this month-end.

"We have decided to go on the two-day strike to draw the attention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the government to call us for talks and finalise the long-delayed wage revision immediately," Suvarna said,

GIEU Chairman Udayan Banerjee said that the insurance staffers had gone on a day's token strike on July 15 since the wage revision in state-run banks was completed over two years ago, and the LIC employees also had their wage agreement settled earlier this year.

"However, the public sector GICs have been left out for so long. The aim of the government is clearly to privatise these companies, compel the employees to take VRS and quit," Banerjee said.

Meanwhile, GIEU Secretary Jitendra Ingle said that barring New India Assurance Co. Ltd., the other 3 companies are making losses owing to the bad policies of the government.

The unionists also claimed that they had written to the Centre and the managements of these companies last month urging them to resolve and settle the pending Wage Revision at par with LIC, as has been the historical practice, but to no avail..

Later, the government told the employees' union to defer their proposed strike on July 15, but no solution to their woes have been offered yet.