KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) – Unions representing workers at Coal India Limited (CIL) and Indian Railways have threatened to down tools over the next couple of months, which could deal a crippling blow to mineral transportation and industrial production.

Five trade unions representing 363 000 workers at CIL met Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal earlier this week to present their demands – the main concern being the government’s plan to sell a 10% stake to private investors.

The unions reiterated to the Minister that they would serve a mandatory 15-day strike notice and go on an indefinite strike within the next 30 days, should government fail to heed its demands.

“We cannot allow any further sale of a stake of CIL,” Indian National Mineworkers Federation secretary Z Q Zama said.

At the same time, trade unions operating in State-owned and -operated, Indian Railways, representing about 1.4-million workers, have announced their intention to go on an indefinite strike to force the government to set up a new national wage commission.

The National Federation of Indian Railwaymen (NFIR), backed by the ruling Indian National Congress party which heads the coalition federal government, has communicated to the Prime Minister that trade unions would call a strike after three months if demand for a new wage commission was not met.

Should the strike materialise, it would be the second in the country’s railway history after the crippling strike of 1974.

Senior officials in the Coal Ministry conceded that if the CIL and railway strikes were to coincide or even follow close on each other's heels,  it would deal a crippling blow to mineral transportation and industrial production.

The officials, however, privately acknowledged that the government would try and avoid the strikes in view of next year’s national elections, as industrial action in two key sectors would risk hobbling industrial and economic growth momentum.

“We have been pressing our demands for the last four months. We have communicated to the Prime Minister, Railway and Finance Ministries. But there has been no response from the government. But once we serve a strike notice, the government will start talking,” a spokesperson of NFIR said.

Apart from handling 24-million passengers per day, Indian Railways carried one-billion tons of freight a year. The railways carried about 52% of the country’s coal production of 557-million tons and nearly 100-million tons of iron-ore from pitheads to steel production centers and ports for export.

According to trade unions, a strike in the railways could seriously hit transportation of about 1.2-million tons of coal a day, as they also handled imported coal, with India planning to ship 165-million tons of overseas coal into the country in the current year.