By IANS,
New Delhi : Oil sector employees will go ahead with their strike as planned from Wednesday despite oil companies moving to initiate legal action against agitating officers, the Oil Sector Officers Association (OSOA) said here Tuesday.
“The strike is going ahead from tomorrow (Wednesday) starting at 0600 hours,” OSOA president Amit Kumar told reporters here.
OSOA, representing around 45,000 employees in 14 public sector oil firms, has called the indefinite strike demanding higher wages.
According to OSOA, its members do not believe the government is sincere about increasing their pay scales.
Reacting to the strike threat, the petroleum ministry has asked the states to invoke the stringent Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) or the National Security Act (NSA) to tackle work stoppage.
“The Assam government has already invoked the ESMA, while other state governments have said they are in the process of doing so,” petroleum secretary R.S. Pandey told reporters Monday.
“It was a sad day to know that technocrats who had given them blood and sweat to run the country’s economy will be persecuted,” OSOA’s Kumar said reacting to Pandey’s statement.