Local miners at Barapukuria on Friday observed strike and laid siege to the coal mine compound for fourth consecutive day demanding regularisation of their jobs.
The local miners on Tuesday went for an indefinite strike after a series of meetings this month between the authorities and the miners' and workers' union leaders ended inconclusively.
Mohammad Quamruzzaman, managing director of the BCMCL, said that the protesters did not allow the officials and workers to come out of the coal mine compound.
He said that the mine authorities urged the miners to join a meeting in presence of Upazila Nirbahi Officer at 3 pm on Friday but the miners did not respond.
The local miners had been deprived of some minimum rights like reasonable wages, job security, weekly and emergency holidays and insurance facility through their employment by a third party instead of the BCMCL, the owner of the company, said a miner early this month.
For last three years, the miners and workers union has been staging protests demanding the appointment of the local miners by Barapukuria Coal Mine Company in stead of contract-based employment by Xuzhou Coal Mining Corporation (XMC), the third party contractors of the project.
However, at a meeting between the BCMCL authorities and the union leaders held on August 15, both the parties agreed on the employment of the miners on the basis of pay scale.
At a meeting between BCMCL, XMC and union leaders on August 18, XMC officials offered to increase the wage by 18 per cent. The Chinese company also offered bonus if the miners would extract 70,000 tonnes of coal a month, a BCMCL official said.
But the miners did not accept the proposal and went for an indefinite strike, he said.
Source : New Age
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