Cabinet nod to CPSEs negotiating wage revision

New Delhi: The Union Cabinet on Wednesday accorded permission to the Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) to negotiate wage revision with their employees, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.

Announcing the decision after a meeting of the Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said: "There are over 320 CPSEs with over 9.35 lakh unionized and non-unionized employees. The Cabinet has approved to give power to the CPSEs to negotiate the wage revision with their employees."

The 320 CPSEs actually have about 12.34 lakh employees, but out of these, about 2.99 lakh are Board-level and below Board-level executives and non-unionized supervisors.

The remaining employees belong to the unionized workmen category and wage revision for them is decided by trade unions and managements of CPSEs in terms of guidelines issued by the Department of Public Enterprises for wage negotiations.

An official statement said management of the CPSEs would be free to negotiate wage revision for workmen where the periodicity of wage settlement of five years or ten years has expired generally on December 31, 2016, keeping in view the affordability and financial sustainability of such wage revision for the CPSEs concerned.

No budgetary support for any wage increase will be provided by the government.

"The entire financial implication would be borne by the respective CPSEs from their internal resources," the statement said.