Nirmala Sitharaman,union finance minister
In a letter to finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, National Confederation of General Insurance Officers’ Association has said the initial offer from GIPSA is disturbing and demoralizing to the workforce
‘’It is matter of grave concern that though wage revision has already been concluded for Life Insurance Corporation and banking sector, there is no positive development in respect of all GIPSA member companies. We request you to immediately intervene and arrange to instruct the GIPSA management to offer respectable wage revision at par with LIC and ECGC to maintain parity in insurance sector,’’ said the letter
New Delhi:
After rejecting low quantum of pay hikes offered by the GIPSA, the coordinating agency of four non-life PSU general insurance companies, the unions of these insurers have finally knocked at the door of finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman for her intervention to break the deadlock over the issue their wage revision by granting them parity with the employees of Life Insurance Corporation and banking industry.
Earlier, GIPSA had offered a very low wage hike of seven per cent with immediate effect but without any past arrears since August 2017 to their employees.
Alternatively, the unions were offered an immediate wage hike of five per cent along with two per cent arrears with effect from August 2017.
In a letter to Sitharaman on Friday, the National Confederation of General Insurance Officers’ Association has said the initial offer from GIPSA is disturbing and demoralising for the workforce.
‘’It is matter of grave concern that though wage revision has already been concluded for Life Insurance Corporation and banking sector, there is no positive development in respect of all GIPSA member companies. We request you to immediately intervene and arrange to instruct the GIPSA management to offer respectable wage revision at par with LIC and ECGC to maintain parity in insurance sector,’’ said the letter.
The government last year had approved a 16 per cent wage revision with arrears and 15 per cent similar hikes with arrears since July 2017 for the employees of LIC and PSU banking industry respectively.
Creating further uncertainty for an early conclusion of the already delayed wage negotiation exercises ,the in the PSU insurance industry on Wednesday have rejected the latest proposal from the companies as they have fallen short of their basic demands
In a meeting on Wednesday, between GIPSA and the National Confederation of General Insurance Officers’ Association, Suchita Gupta, chairman of GIPSA, who is also CMD of National Insurance Company (NIC), unveiled the offer of seven per cent, without any arrears, hike on behalf of the companies
Gupta had informed that the MoF wanted performance based wage revision but GIPSA and the company managements convinced the ministry to go without such a condition for this time.
Further, Gupta advised the associations to come back with counter offers or submit white paper on it within seven days of this offer, latest by 30th June, 2022.
The cumulative contribution to the exchequer by the PSU general insurance industry since nationalization run into few ten thousand crores, stated the letter to Sitharaman.
All government sponsored social insurance schemes as announced by central government are being serviced by PSU general insurers without any commercially viable premiums, the letter said.
Industry observers point out that there are a lot of employees in the PSU general insurance sector,are now waiting for the wage hike and VRS to be announced by the companies to quit their jobs.
“Since government also wants to shed workforce in these companies to make them competitive, it will in line with government’s objective to finalise a good wage revision package and then announce an attractive VRS package early that will facilitate employees to leave these companies of their own,” said an industry veteran.
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