According to Choudhary Swaroop Singh, general secretary, MTNL Staff Union, the management has failed to fulfill its promise that employees will be given MTNL pay scales and perks, etc before June 2000.

He alleges that the management does not want to finalize the issues of the employees, because it has failed to provide even provisional terms and conditions, promotional avenues, norms for creation of new posts, pay scales, and perks, even after a span of 12 years.

According to him, in the first JNC meeting of the management and union, held in December, the unions had asked for immediate negotiation of pay and allowances. However, pay scales came up for discussion only in the JNC meeting held in end-Feburary and "even after the approval of the Board these pay scales have not been implemented so far," he added.

According to him, despite tremendous pressure of the unions, perks and allowances were negotiated and finalised only after a gap of four months from the previous meeting. Management had assured the union these will be approved in the Board meeting to be held on 29th June 2000, but it was included in the agenda meeting at a very belated stage and management failed to fulfill its promise, added Singh. Now to register their protest against the delay, MTNL employees are planning to go on strike on July 4. The unions are also threatening to go on an indefinite strike from July 11, in case their demands are not met by then.