Employees of 3 SAIL units on strike: INTUC

New Delhi: Employees at three units of steel major SAIL went on day-long strike on Tuesday to protest against the government proposal to divest stake in them, a top official of trade union INTUC said today.

"All the existing unions, including INTUC and CITU, at SAIL's three units -- Alloy Steel Plant in Durgapur, Salem Steel Plant and a steel plant in Karnataka -- has begun their strike from 6 am today," India National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) National President G Sanjeeva Reddy told PTI.

There has been no production since 6 am, he said.

Around 10,000 employees of these plants including temporary and contract workers are on strike protesting against the government's proposal to divest in these units.

"They are demanding that government give them one more year so that workers and officers can show profitability" of these plants, Reddy had said yesterday.

The government has in principle approved strategic disinvestment of SAIL's Bhadravati, Salem and Durgapur (alloy steel plants).

Tapan Kumar Sen (CPI-M) had yesterday said in the Rajya Sabha that a strike call has been given for Tuesday by all major trade unions to protest against the "dangerous game of putting the whole national manufacturing capability...To the process of privatisation".

He had said the employees of the three units will be joining the strike against the privatisation.

"These (are) special steel plants which have no parallel in the private sector in the country and even they are being sought to be privatised," Sen had said.

He had said the privatisation move was nothing but "a design of destroying the manufacturing capabilities of the country under the camouflage of the so-called 'Make in India' slogan".