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Postal strike called off

About 60,000 postal employees returned to work on Thursday after union leaders ended their eight-day-old strike, reposing "full faith" in Communication Minister Sushma Swaraj's assurances that their 10 demands would be settled sympathetically.

The decision was announced after two hours of talks the union leaders had with the minister, the first since July 9 when she had asked them to desist from strike.

The leaders had held day-long discussions with postal board chairman U S Prasad on Wednesday after which they had indicated that the strike would be called off.

The end of the strike was announced in a joint statement by Federation of National Postal Organisation secretary general G K Padmanabhan and his National Federation of Postal Employees counterpart R L Bhattacharya.

The statement said members of the Joint Council of Action, which spearheaded the agitation, had ''very fruitful discussions'' with the postal board officials, which was followed by a meeting with the minister.

The minister assured the unions that the government would ensure ''expeditious settlement of the issues including implementation of the Talwar Committee recommendations", and their demands would be decided on within a 'time-frame.'

''The JCA expressing full confidence in the minister's assurance, called off the strike forthwith. The JCA appeals to all the employees to resume the work with immediate effect,'' the statement said.

Padmanabhan and Bhattacharya said the unions had agreed to clear the backlog of work early and restore normalcy.

He said the minister had assured that there would be no victimisation of the staff. Nor would there be any pay cut for the strike period.

The backlog of work would be cleared without any extra remuneration, he said.

The government had also agreed to consider the extra departmental agents's demands, including payment of gratuity and pension.

Though the time-frame was not specified, the unions expect the issue to be resolved in about 10 days, Bhattacharya said.

"We have got more than what we wanted," the NFPC said when asked whether he was satisfied with the outcome of the strike.

UNI

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