Contractual employees of BSES defer strike

New Delhi, Aug 19 (PTI) Contractual employees of powerdistribution companies BSES Rajdhani and BSES Yamuna todayagreed to defer their proposed indefinite strike for the timebeing after Delhi High Court asked the two discoms to "hearthem out". Observing that "everything will come to a standstill ifelectricity was disrupted" in the national capital, JusticeSanjeev Sachdeva asked the contractual employees to defertheir strike, slated from August 22, till the governmentdecides whether to impose ESMA or not. The court said that August 20 and 21 were holidays and adecision by the Lieutenant Governor on whether to imposeEssential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) would take time. The judge said that deferring of the strike would alsogive the court some time to adjudicate the discoms’ pleaseeking directions to the government to invoke ESMA. The court further said, "Can you put the entire public torisk? Hospitals, airport, schools will not get power.Everything will come to a standstill." "You can go on strike a week or ten days later. What isso sacrosanct about August 22," it asked. The lawyer for the contractual employees then told thecourt the strike would be deferred if the discoms called themfor negotiations, to which BSES Rajdhani and Yamuna agreed. The court fixed August 22 for holding meetings betweenthe senior officials of the discoms and the representatives ofthe contractual employees’ union and listed the matter forfurther hearing on September 14. The judge, however, made it clear that "the union shallbe bound by their statement not to go on strike till next dateof hearing" on September 14. During the hearing, the lawyer for the contractualemployees told the court that they were only involved inbilling and collections and had nothing to do with powersupply. She also said that ESMA would not apply to them asthey were contractual employees. She alleged that the strike was called as they were notgiven any holidays or even minimum wages and also against the"hire and fire" policy of the discoms. (More) PTI HMP PPSARC