KOLKATA | June 18, 2017: Coal workmen unions representing almost 5-lakh coal workers at Coal India and Singareni Collieries, have deferred their three-day strike by three months.

It was to be observed from Monday.

They had declared the strike because they believed the government was planning to merge coal workers' provident fund with the Employees Provident Fund. They feared it would reduce their receivables post retirement. They also demanded that their salary negotiations be concluded at the earliest and decisions taken in the previous concluded salary negotiation round be implemented.

S Q Zama, secretary general of the Rashtriya Koyla Khadan Mazdoor Sangh affiliated to INTUC said: "Following today's meeting where it was clarified that demands of workers' salary would be resolved within two months we have decided to defer the strike."

D.D. Ramanandan, president All India Coal Workers Federation affiliated to CITU said: “Since the government clarified earlier thate would be no merger of provident funds, and salary issues would be resolved in two months, we deferred the strike.”

Going by the current production trend, a three-day work stoppage could have led to a loss of around 4 million tonnes of production and 4.5 million tonnes of dispatches. It is now averted.

(Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/)