A protest by OFB workers in Pune in August last year. (File)
Federations of defence manufacturing employees from 41 ordnance factories across the country have threatened to go on an indefinite strike from October 12 against the government’s move to corporatise Ordnance Factories Board (OFB). Notice for this strike will be issued to the respective units on August 4.
In the fourth tranche of the Armanirbhar Bharat initiative, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had on May 16 announced the decision of corporatisation of OFB for “improving autonomy, accountability and efficiency in ordnance suppliers”. The federations have argued that a corporate entity would not be able to survive the unique market environment of defence products that has very unstable demand and supply dynamics.
On Tuesday, representatives from the federations had attended a meeting called by the top officials from the Department of Defence Production of the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The meeting was attended by the representatives of the All India Defence Employees’ Federation (AIDEF) — a federation of Left unions, Bhartiya Pratiraksha Mazdoor Sangh (BPMS) — an arm of RSS-affiliate Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, and the Indian National Defence Workers’ Federation (INDWF) — of the Congress’s INTUC along with the office bearers of Confederation of Defence Recognised Associations (CDRA).
The leaders of these federations held a meeting on Wednesday and jointly released a statement on Thursday. “From the initial remarks of the Secretary, Defence Production, it was clear that the government is going ahead with its decision of corporatization. Therefore the meeting was of the unanimous view that the date of the issue of the strike notice and the date of commencement of the indefinite strike should be decided and communicated to the government,” the statement read.
The statement further said, “The Secretary, DP in the meeting held on July 28 has assured that he will communicate the concerns expressed by the employees representatives against corporatisation of OFB to the Defence Minister at the earliest. If no communication is received from the Ministry of Defence about the decision of the Defence Minister by July 31, a joint letter will be issued to the Secretary, DP and Defence Secretary informing them about our decision to issue the strike notice on August 4 and to commence the indefinite strike from October 12.”
Federation office-bearers said that considering the COVID-19 pandemic, the period of close to nine weeks has been kept between the date of strike notice and commencement of the strike.