Insurance employees protest, demand wage revision

Insurance employees staging protest in Jammu on Thursday.
Insurance employees staging protest in Jammu on Thursday.

Excelsior Correspondent

JAMMU, Dec 10: Massive demonstrations were held jointly today under the banner Joint Front of LIC Class-1 Federation, National Federation of Insurance Field Workers of India and All India Insurance Employees’ Association during lunch recess in offices of LIC of India across Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir.
The demonstrations were jointly led by Vijay Khajuria- secretary Class-1 Federation Srinagar Division, Rakesh Magotra- secretary National Federation of Insurance Field Workers of India Srinagar Division and Pawan Gupta- secretary Northern Zone Insurance Employees’ Association, Srinagar Division.
Speaking on the occasion at DO Cell Jammu, the leaders said that wage revision of LIC employees has been due since August 1, 2017; and in spite of lapse of more than three years, the Management is not serious in settling the genuine demand of the employees. There is no genuine response either from the Management or from the Govt. This inordinate delay has caused a lot of resentment among employees.
“In spite of the fact that productivity per employee has increased to a big extent and also servicing to customers has touched the sky, the aspect of wage revision of employees is not being taken care of. The LIC employees are demanding a very genuine wage hike of 40% which they deserve seeing to the productivity and paying capacity of the industry,” the leaders added.
It was also pressed to scrap the new pension scheme and replace it with old pension scheme of 1995 as the new pension scheme is defined contribution scheme and does not tell how much pension the employee will get on retirement. So, the Defined Contribution Pension Scheme does not adhere to the social security of pensioners in old age. It was demanded that family pension be increased to 30% from 15% at the earliest.
It was declared that two hour walkout/ lunch hour strike will be observed by LIC employees all over India in support of these demands on December 22.