Postal strike: Paswan holds talks with union leaders

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, DEC. 6. With more postal workers joining the strike, even the foreign postal services have been hit on the second day today. The Communications Minister, Mr. Ram Vilas Paswan, held talks with union leaders for over two hours.

The discussions were used by both sides to test the waters. They were described as ``cordial'' by official sources, while trade union sources said they submitted extensive data on the nature of their demands. Mr. Paswan is understood to have assured that he would forward their demands to the Group of Ministers (GoM) on postal issues which might meet later tonight or tomorrow morning.

Urging the union leaders to call off the strike because the Government was sympathetic to their demands, Mr. Paswan said most of the demands would receive positive consideration. Since some of the demands had legal connotations their processing could take some time.

Mr. Paswan said changing the name of Extra Departmental employees (part-time rural postmen) and giving them pension had to be extensively vetted from the legal angle. Pension benefits to part-time workers could lead to similar demands from other Government departments.

But reliable sources said the GoM on postal issues, headed by the Union Home Minister, Mr. L.K. Advani, was not in favour of conceding most of the demands. Except for a couple of minor demands, the GoM was unwilling to give any concessions. But the minor demands would benefit only 2,000 employees.

It was officially admitted that attendance was ``much less'' in most States except Assam, Delhi and Andhra Pradesh where 30 per cent of the employees reported for work. The Government said it was maintaining skeletal services such as transmission and distribution of mail and payment of money orders. As many as 60 per cent of head post offices and 40 per cent of the district post offices were kept open, said a status report.

Meanwhile, one of the federations, the pro-RSS Bharatiya Postal Employees Federations (BPEF), today said its members would continue with the strike till the demands are met. The federation has reasons to make this statement as its sister organisation in the Telecom Department had walked away from the recent telecom strike after just two days. ``This will not happen in our case,'' assured the BPEF Secretary General, Mr. Y. S. Yadav.

Meanwhile, the Chairman of Central Government Employees Confederation and railway trade union leader, Mr. M. Raghavaiah, said it was ``unfortunate that the Government failed to honour the agreement on outstanding issues reached with the postal federations in May this year, forcing postal employees to go on strike''. ``While supporting the agitation launched by postal employees, we urge the Government to reach a settlement as the country cannot afford to put up with the stalemate,'' he added.

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