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OIL SECTOR OFFICERS’ASSOCIATION
OILMENS’ AGITATION – NARRATION OF FACTS
 The country has witnessed a strike by Oil Sector’s Officers’ Association (OSOA),which continued for an unprecedented three days. In the media the Officers werepainted as villains & terrorists. A false propaganda was unleashed regarding thehefty pay scales of Oilmen & the media labeled us traitors.We bore this onslaught with stoic silence, as nobody including the government waswilling to listen to our point of view. Our voice was effectively silenced in the media& the country got to hear only one side of the story.We would like to tell you our side of the tale, which led to the agitation witnessed bythe country. Historically Oil Sector has never believed in treading the path of strike.In the past strikes have been withdrawn within a few hours as the government wasprepared to sit across the table for resolution & we too had appreciated thegovernment’s point of view. This year the issue was of pay revision of Oil Sector which was taking place aftertwelve years & was pending for last two years. Government had set up a payrevision committee (PRC) under chairmanship of Justice M. J. Rao in Nov’06. Aftereighteen months of deliberations the committee gave their recommendations inMay’08. Since then we were requesting government to implement the same withmodifications. However D.P.E. instead of considering the report gave it to acommittee of secretaries (COS) for review in deviation to the set practice.Surprisingly the COS with only two sittings drastically changed the pay structureinflicting major damage to the A+ Category which was dominated by Oil Sector.On two different occasions we gave strike notices & withdrew the same onassurances of government. Particularly on 17.11.08 the Hon’ble Ministers Sh.Santosh Mohan Deb & Sh. Murli Deora gave specific & categoric assurances to usfor bettering the recommendations of COS & to look after the interest of Oil Sector. To our surprise what finally was approved by both D.P.E. & Cabinet was in totalcontradiction to the assurances and proposals of Oil Sector management. Thiscompletely shattered our trust and therefore it was decided to launch agitation from2.12.2008. Unfortunately the terror strike at Mumbai on 26.11.2008 shook the entirecountry and Oil Sector Officer’s Association was also not insensitive to the situationtherefore placing the interest of the nation and people at large uppermost, theagitation was deferred.Page 1 of 3
 
Meanwhile Oil Company Managements forwarded their proposal with certainmodifications to MOP&NG on 5.12.2008. No favorable response was received.
Instead,
 
a false propaganda was launched wherein the salaries of entrylevel officer was depicted as more than one lac.
This consolidated our notionthat no help will be forthcoming in regard to pay revision. Therefore it was decidedthat in case no favorable outcome comes out by 31.12.2008, the OSOA shouldfinally launch agitation w.e.f. 07.01.09.We were expecting that we will be called for discussions on 6.01.2009 and we shallbe able to conclude the strike call but it was not so. We were left with no otheroption but to commence the strike on 07.01.2009.
An opinion got created due tofalse propaganda of salaries ranging between 1 to 3lacs that oil companyofficers are highly paid and are agitating without any issues and want toblackmail through striking work. Probably due to this, no efforts weremade to initiate dialogue/ negotiation.
Instead ESMA was imposed &disciplinary actions were inflicted. On 07.01.2009 evening, Honorable Sh. MurliDeora did make efforts to open the dialogue process but deployment of heavypolice at the meeting place scared us away and no dialogues could take place.On 08.01.2009 on our own initiative we tried to open dialogues with Oil CMDs with aview to end the strike. This resulted in a meeting with them at about 1200 hrs atIOCL office Noida but unfortunately when we were about to reach a settlement,police raided the place and we had to rush out without reaching any conclusion.Meanwhile we continued dialogues with CMDs and Hon’ble MOP&NG which resultedin a meeting at IOC Colony at Noida, where we again requested for resolution of atleast a few if not all points for an honorable settlement. The Hon’ble Minister leftwithout any assurance stating that he will get a mandate from Hon’ble PrimeMinister on 09.01.2009. On 09.01.2009 right from the morning we tried to contact Hon’ble Minister MOP&NGin vain. When it became clear that no solution forthcoming from any quarter, andthe public had started facing hardships we decided to call off the strike on our ownin the after noon, however we had no means to convey the same to the authoritiestill about 5 p.m. when we could get in touch with CMDs and then with the Hon’bleMinister MOP&NG.It is pertinent to mention that on all 3 days of the said agitation media did not putour side of the story instead launched a carefully crafted campaign to malign ourimage in the eyes of public. The electronic communications giving our side to themedia were blocked & our voice was effectively gagged. We the victims were madeout to be villains & the public opinion was swung against us.We had no intention of causing discomfort to the public & had ensured that all ourRetail Outlets & LPG godowns are topped up before commencing our agitation onPage 2 of 3
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