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Manju AB
Mumbai, Dec 24: The new Hindustan Lever Ltd management at Lakme's Deonar factory in Mumbai has `verbally' cited "unviability" of the unit and declared a group incentive scheme to elicit a universal response to a voluntary retirement scheme.
The novel VRS offers pension benefits and an early bird scheme to retire all bargainable (non-officer) employees of the factory. This the Lever management plans to achieve through a group incentive scheme wherein if "all" employees in the bargainable category opt for the VRS, each employee will be given an additional incentive of Rs 25,000 each.
Lever acquired the manufacturing facilities of Lakme along with its brands and Lakme's 50 per cent shareholding in joint venture Lakme Lever Ltd for Rs 200 crore. An estimated Rs 70 crore was paid for the manufacturing facilities.
Ironically, as recently as December 3, each of the 260 employees at the Lakme Lever factory at Deonar were handed out warm welcoming letters by the erstwhile Lakme management.
The letter reassuredthe employees on three counts:
Continuity has been recognised in the voluntary retirement scheme announced by the Lever management to the employees now.
The voluntary retirement scheme is applicable to all employees in the bargainable category with more than five years of permanent service on the rolls of the company. Those bargainable employees who are not eligible for the scheme will be dealt with on a case-to-case basis "in due course of time," says the management.
The lumpsum benefit that an employee get would be the last drawn salary that attracts providentfund, multiplied by the balance months of service (subject to a maximum amount of Rs 5 lakh with income tax exemption).
The income tax exemption is applicable only to employees who have attained 40 years of age as on the date of announcement of the scheme or have over 10 years of service on the rolls of the company.
An early bird incentive is available for employees who apply before December 30, 1998. If an employee has more than 18 months of service remaining, the incentive is Rs 75,000. For 13-18 months of remaining months of service, it is Rs 50,000, for 7-12 months of service left the employee would be paid Rs 25,000 and for one to seven months of service left the early bird incentive would be Rs 10,000.
Another attraction that the VRS would entail is a monthly pension which would depend on the gross salary of the employees. For employees drawing less than Rs 8,000, the monthly pension would be Rs 1,000, for employees drawing salary between Rs 10,001 to Rs 12,000, the pension would be Rs 3,000, atsalary levels between Rs 12,001 and Rs 14,000, it would be Rs 4,000, between Rs 14,001 and Rs 16,000, it would be Rs 5,000 and for salary drawn between Rs 16,001 and Rs 18,000, it would be Rs 6,000.
The monthly pension amount will escalate at the rate of 5 per cent per annum. The first increase will be effected from January 2000. The pension will be paid up to the normal date of retirement on attaiment of 60 years of age. The pension will be paid to the employee's legal heir/nominee on the death of the employee.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
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