Tata Steel will now have 12-hour duty rather than eight hours. The approval for the same has come from the government. After approval came from the government, the issue was discussed on Monday between Tata Steel chief IR Zubin Palia and top three of the union.
On behalf of the management, the Union was informed that the Government, while accepting their insistence, has now allowed the employees in the company to work in two shifts of 12 hours each instead of A, B, C shift, so that the company’s production continues during this corona period and the least number of employees get affected by the infection. For this purpose, the company had sought approval from the government for allowing duty hours of 12 hours.
On behalf of the management, the Union has been informed that this 12-hour duty will be launched from the company’s Sinter plant and new Bar Mill department as a pilot project initially. It will also be implemented in other departments after its success and better results. The discussion was attended by Union President R Ravi Prasad, general secretary Satish Singh and Deputy President Arvind Pandey.
Once the 12-hour duty comes into operation, the employees will have to perform duty on three days in the first week and four days in the subsequent week. Hence the employees will not have any additional pressure or impact, but they are going to benefit from it. The committee member, head and chief of the Department has been entrusted with the responsibility of preparing the roster.
The pod system was introduced on behalf of the management to protect the employees from the distant corona infection and to keep the production running. The three-shift employees were divided into four shifts. When an employee of one pod was infected, the group was being completely quarantined and another group was being engaged. But the issue was that more than 75 per cent of the employees had to be engaged. While according to the government and the company, at present, 50 per cent of manpower is to be used. This would only be possible from a period of 12 hours.
