Letter To, Hon’ble Chief Minister, Chandigarh, Haryana.
Shri. Nayab Singh Saini Ji,
The Ordinance as above subject is promulgated on 14.8.2024 claiming to provide the security of service to the contractual employees working in the various Departments, Boards, Corporations or Authority under the Haryana state Govt. Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) expresses its serious concern and opposition to it, urging for immediate withdrawal of the Ordinance.
The Ordinance in the guise of security of Service of Contractual employees shall create a parallel set of contractual employees and perpetuate it on permanent perennial jobs as against the state govt employees in the Govt Departments, Boards, Corporations or Authority under the state Govt instead of regular permanent state Govt employees. This is not permissible under the existing laws.
The State Govt employees recruited by Haryana Public Service Commission and governed by State civil services Rules have a fixed pay scale and their pay and other benefits are based on the recommendations of Pay Commissions while the contractual employees are not governed by the same rules and are denied it through this Ordinance also.
The Ordinance as per section 5 denies any pay scale on par with that of regular employees but provides for only a consolidated minimum pay as that of pay of same scale and some increment of service weightage for the number of years of service rendered by the eligible candidates as one time in the beginning in the guise of security of service. The Section 3(ii) of the Ordinance defines the eligible candidate as one who has completed 5 years with 240 days of work per year. This, in fact, shall also create multiple sets of contractual employees, with different service conditions outside the purview of the provisions of the Ordinance.
The Ordinance as per its first Schedule pushes the eligible candidates to Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) Chirayu extension Scheme for health care benefits and to the Social Security Code 2020 for death cum retirement benefits – Gratuity and Maternity benefits much below and restricted compared to the defined benefits currently available to the state Govt employees while same and similar work is extracted by them. Furthermore the Social Security Code 2020 and other 4 labour codes are all opposed by almost all the central trade unions and all India federations of State Govt employees because of their patently anti-employee character.
The contractual employees are governed by the Contract Labour (Regulation & Abolition) Act -1970 and Central Rules - 1971. As per which the contract employees are not to be deployed in the permanent and perennial nature of Jobs which should only be manned by regular employees. And the contractual employees are eligible for equal pay for equal work in same and similar nature of Jobs. The Ordinance will finish-up all these positive provisions.
The Ordinance, in absence of any recruitment to the regular jobs in state Govt, will perpetuate the contractual employment in most of the permanent and perennial nature of jobs of state govt services contrary to the central legislation of Contract Labour (Regulation & Abolition) Act - 1970 and rules under it. Which are in force in State of Haryana through the Haryana State Contract labour (Regulation & Abolition) Rules -1975.
The Contractual employees working in the permanent and perennial nature of jobs in State Govt Departments, Boards, Corporations or Authority are to be absorbed in Govt services through conferment of permanent status as employees and are eligible to all the service conditions and benefits on par with other regular state Govt employees. This is being denied through this Ordinance.
Hence the CITU urges for immediate withdrawal of it and for taking appropriate measures for conferment of permanent status to the contractual employees along with same and similar wages and benefits for the same and similar nature of work done by them in permanent and perennial nature of Jobs in the state Govt/corporations as well as in other private sector in the state, in the interests of fairness and propriety.
Thanking You,
Yours Sincerely,
Tapan Sen
General Secretary
