Mumbai, Oct 06: Employees of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) today threatened to go on indefinite strike if other means of agitation failed against the proposed privatisation programme of the state-owned oil major. "We will resort to an indefinite strike if other means of agitation fail against the proposed privatisation programme of Indian Oil Corporation," the president of national association of Indian Oil employees, S N Surve, said here.

A joint forum of 17 unions in the refining sector and four in the marketing sector would be formed to oppose the government's move, he said, adding that initially the employees would resort to a token strike against the move.

The action plan for the agitation would be chalked out at the meeting of the union at Chennai on October 8, he added.
Surve said protest meetings were held today at IOC's regional office at Worli and Bandra in Mumbai and at Barauni in Assam.

"The government is privatising IOC as it could not do so in the case of HPCL and BPCL," Surve said, adding that IOC employees are united to oppose the move tooth and nail.
The Central Government last week said it could sell its stake in IOC, a fortune 500 company, exercising its executive power while looking into judicial and legal options to pursue the sell-off programme.

It had said that IOC's retail marketing operations could be disinvested either through public offer or to a strategic buyer after splitting the corporation in two or three entities.
Bureau Report