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Balco unions to press on with two-month-old strike

Workers' unions of the newly-privatised aluminium-maker Balco on Saturday said they will press on with a two-month-old strike despite a Supreme Court request to return to work.

"It has been decided the strike will continue. We will inform the Supreme Court on Tuesday," Harinath Singh, a member of a Bharat Aluminium Company trade union said.

The unions met on Saturday to discuss their response to the Supreme Court request to resume work after Balco's new management, Sterlite Industries, agreed to pay the workers for the time they were on strike and said there would be no job cuts.

Singh told Reuters by telephone from Korba in central India where the plant is located, the management's offer was not acceptable as the wages paid were an advance which would be adjusted later.

"It is not salary, it is just a loan advance. It is subject to adjustment later and we do not require it," Singh said.

Nearly 7,000 workers launched the strike on March 3 fearing massive layoffs after the sale of the plant, India's first big-ticket privatisation in a decade of reforms.

The Supreme Court has asked the workers to comply with its request by May 8 when it meets again to consider the matter.

The workers began the strike at the plant in Korba in Chhattisgarh after the central government sold its 51 per cent stake in Balco to private metals firm Sterlite for Rs 5.51 billion.

The new management said on April 11 that losses due to the strike totalled Rs 1 billion.

Talks to settle the strike at the plant ended in a stalemate after trade unions demanded that the deal be scrapped. But the government said the sale was irreversible.

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