PSGI employees demand wage revision, hold demo

Nagpur, July 7

Public Sector General Insurance (PSGI) employees staged sit-in dharna and held lunch hour demonstrations in front of Regional Office of United India Insurance Company Limited, situated at Shankarnagar square, Nagpur demanding immediate settlement of their wage revision, pending since August 2017, on the line of LIC of India. The aggrieved employees shouted slogans against the Government and General Insurers (Public Sector) Association of India (GIPSA).

The agitation programme was held on the appeal of Joint Forum of Trade Unions and Associations (JFTU) in PSGI companies. PSGI employees all over India held Dharna and demonstrations at Head/Regional Office centers and demonstrations at other centers.

Besides wage revision, pension for all under 1995 scheme by Scrapping National Pension System (NPS), till then increase in company's contribution to 14% towards NPS, uniform Family Pension at the rate of 30% without any capping, updation of Pension, merger of PSGI Companies as proposed earlier by Govt. and repeal GIBNA amendment Act –paving way of Privatization are the other demands of the employees.

At the time of conclusion of dharna at Nagpur huge demonstrations and gate meeting were held. In the meeting Rajendra Saroj of NICOA condemned GIPSA for giving a meager offer of wage increase in the talks held on 2nd June 2022. Swapnil Kohle of UIICOA said that we will not take any thing lesser than LIC of India, Anil Sakharkar of GIBCEWA said that GIPSA and Department of Financial Services(DFS) have insulted PSGI employees by giving offer of 2% arrears. He further said that we have to fight unitedly to get our demands. Ashish Virkhare of BVKS stated that PSGI employees who have worked hard in a pandemic are disappointed and frustrated, they may lose their tempo of working due to the attitude of GIPSA and DFS towards employees.

Prashant Dixit, General Secretary of General Insurance Employees’ Union-Western Zone (GIEU WZ) stated that because of our constant struggles compelled GIPSA to call for talks on wage revision. But, they have not given an offer like LIC and hence their offer was rejected. Pradeep Dharamtho, president of GIEU WZ addressed the meeting and informed that constituents of JFTU worked hard by all means for wage revision pending since last 59 months. Vinay Karpe, Chandrakant Deshpande, Anil Nimje, Ashish Kutemathe, Arun Kulkarni, Omkar Shende, Ajit Ranade, Deepak Gotmare, Homraj Adey and Sunil Tambey worked hard for the success of agitations.