SHILLONG: The youth wing of Khun Hynniewtrep National Awakening Movement (KHNAM) shot off a letter to the state Chief Secretary complaining against the attempt of Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL) to engage casual employees on contractual basis for a period of one year.
The MeECL on July 27, 2018 has notified that all casual workers engaged under the MeECL and its subsidiary company are henceforth be engaged on a contractual basis for a period of one year, by duly signing the contract prepared by the corporation between the employee, the employer(s).
Youth wing president, Thomas Passah objected to the MeECL’s move to engage contractual employees asserting that it need to be stopped while pointing out that the MeECL violated state government’s notifications.
He stated MeECL had violated the Government of Meghalaya office Memorandum dated April 18, 1989 which has instructed that appointment on contract basis has to be for specific time-bound schemes or programmes or for obtaining technical man power from outside the state to temporarily tide over the state’s requirement till such time suitable local personnel are available.
According to Passah, there is a clear notification from the government of Meghalaya dated April 18,1989 that all proposals for appointment on contract service are submitted to the cabinet for its approval, after having obtained the approval of the personnel and finance department.
“Now the Corporation is forcing these employees to convert them as contractual employee and to do away with the casual employee. This is a clear attempt of suppression of rights. It is seen that with trends like this, if this contract is allowed to be completed, we could sadly say that the MeECL will not have any employee but rather slaves working in the Corporation,” he added.
Again, he pointed out that as per the contract agreement, the Corporation has also not followed or incorporated the “Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act 2017 which came into force on April 01, 2017.
Passah also asserted that the verdict of the Supreme Court of India for implantation of “Equal Pay for Equal Work” has not been made applicable to the employee of the Corporation.
He maintained that MeECL and its subsidiary company has a large number of employees working on a temporary basis for a period of 10-20 years without any security of employment, which given them and their family an uncertainty for future.
“The rights of these employees need to be protected at all time and it is the government duties and responsibility to ensure that we have Employee and not slave working to build our state,” he added.