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MTNL employees to strike from May 15

Some 44,000 employees of telecom giant MTNL plan to launch a strike on May 15 to demand their pensions be paid by the government rather than by a company trust fund, a union official said on Tuesday.

"We've served notice of an indefinite strike from May 15. The strike is over pension benefits for staff," Bhim Singh, assistant general secretary of the MTNL Staff Union, said.

State-run Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd is India's largest listed telecom company which provides fixed-line and cellular telephone services in the cities of Bombay and New Delhi. The firm is also widely expected to be a top pick for privatisation by the government this year.

Singh said the employees of MTNL, carved out of the government's telecom department in 1986, were worried about the security of their pensions if they were paid by the company trust fund rather than by the government.

The company was not immediately available for comment. The union said if the strike goes ahead, it could seriously hamper MTNL's operations as the employees involved man telephone exchanges, fix telephone faults and lay phone cables.

Singh said the MTNL Staff Union was the largest union and represented around 80 per cent of the firm's nearly 55,000 workers. Officers are not members of the striking union. The company has nearly 62,000 employees in all including officers.

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