Ordnance factory employees give one-month strike notice

Unions representing civilian employees of the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) at its various facilities have given a notice for a one-month strike protesting against the Centre's corporatisation plan, a federation official said on Thursday. Serving the joint notice on the Defence Secretary, all the three federations of civilian employees of the OFB and units of the Directorate General of Quality Assurance (DGQA) proposed to go on a strike from August 20 to September 19, AIDEF general secretary C Srikumar said on Thursday.

The Unions have demanded "withdrawal of the centre's decision to corporatise the ordnance factories", he said. The All India Defence Employees Federation (AIDEF), the Indian National Defence Workers Federation (INDWF) and the Bharatiya Pratiraksha Mazdoor Sangh (BPMS) said all the affiliated unions had taken the strike ballot on July 30.

"More than 75 per cent of the members voted there and three-fourth of the votes cast were in favour of the one-month strike," the notice said. Srikumar said across the country there are 41 factories under the OFB, across the country, engaged in various defence productions.

Various committees constituted by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) have suggested the corporatisation of the OFB, which has its headquarters in Kolkata, to enable it to function under its own board of directors.

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