Railway strike likely as majority vote in favor

UDAIPUR: The secret ballot procedure adopted by the railway unions to get the consensus of members to decide whether to go on indefinite strike has absolute majority in favor. In the voting held here on December 20-21, 90 percent of the employees dropped their ballots papers in the red box, which denotes 'Yes' to strike. Those who weren't in favor of the strike dropped their ballots in the black box.

"At Udaipur railway station, 398 voted for strike out of the total 400 votes polled, while at Rana Pratap Nagar railway station, 284 votes were in favor of strike while merely three were against it. At Kamlighat station all 179 votes were in favour while at Mavli, 267 voted for strike and 18 were against it," informed NL Vijay, president of the north western railway employees union. Union leaders have indicated that the strike could be a reality in February 2014.

Earlier in July, railway unions All India Railwaymen Federation (AIRF) and National Federation of Indian Railwaymen (NFIR), had presented a charter of demands to the finance ministry and had given a three-month deadline that ended in September. The unions had announced to conduct secret ballot to get consensus from their members before taking a decision of indefinite strike. The secret ballot was held across 17 zones of the Indian Railways, between November 28 and 30 for NFIR and on December 20 and 21 for AIRF.