Government derecognises postal groups that aided farmers’ protest: Citu condemns Centre's 'draconian actions'

Past office-bearers of the National Federation of Postal Employees say the government’s action was ‘arbitrary’ and that the federation has challenged it in Calcutta High Court

Prime minister Narendra Modi.: File Photo

Basant Kumar Mohanty   |   TT  |  New Delhi   |    01.05.23  : The Centre has been accused of “vendetta and politics of revenge” after the postal department derecognised an employees’ federation and one of its constituent unions for allegedly contributing funds to the 2020-21 farmers’ agitation and to the CPM and its labour arm Citu.

The government’s action — reported in The Hindu on April 27 — apparently followed complaints from an RSS-backed employees’ association.

Past office-bearers of the National Federation of Postal Employees (NFPE) — derecognised with its constituent, the All India Postal Employees Union Group C (AIPEU) — told The Telegraph the government action was “arbitrary” and that the federation had challenged it in Calcutta High Court.

CPM Rajya Sabha member Binoy Viswam wrote to communications minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Saturday seeking withdrawal of the April 26 derecognition order.

“AIPEU is one of the oldest unions formed in 1920 and NFPE is one of the largest unions in the sector. De-recognising them due to a complaint made by the RSS affiliate Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) reeks of vendetta and politics of revenge,” he wrote.

In a statement, Citu condemned the “draconian actions of the government to silence the opposition of workers and employees to its destructive and anti-worker policies”.

Sources in the NFPE said that 70 per cent of the country’s postal employees are its members. They said the complaint against the two organisations came from the Bharatiya Postal Employees Federation (BPEF), an associate of the BMS.

Contacted, BMS north zone secretary Pawan Kumar would neither confirm nor deny that the BPEF had lodged the complaint.

The postal department issued showcause notices to the two employees’ bodies in March this year, and later declared their responses unsatisfactory.

It concluded that the “political donations” had contravened the Central Civil Services (Recognition of Service Association) Rules 1993.

The CCS-RSA Rules say that the funds of recognised employees’ bodies cannot be used for the “propagation of the views of any political party” but have to be utilised for the “furtherance of the objects of the service association”.

*The derecognition order said that about Rs 30,000 had been donated to the farmers’ agitation from the account of the AIPEU.

According to the order, the NFPE had maintained thatthe federation and the union routinely paid their annual fees to the Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers, to which they are affiliated, and the confederation had used the funds to contribute to the farmers’ agitation.

Therefore, the NFPE had argued, the payment to the farmers was the confederation’s decision and not the union’s.

However, the government order rejected this, saying: “Their audit statement also proves that they were fully aware of the utilisation of the money given by them to the confederation and it was clearly an organisational decision of AIPEU Group C.”

The federation further argued that it often gave donations to external agencies — for instance, as aid for victims of floods and earthquakes — and if that did not violate the CCS-RSA Rules, nor did any contribution to the agitating farmers.

Two former NFPE office-bearers told this newspaper that the Rules did not define what came under “furtherance of the objects of the service association” and stipulated no penalty for violations. Never before had an interpretation been made like the current one, they added.

■ On the alleged payment of Rs 4,935 to the CPM, the NFPE told the government that one of its office assistants had paid it digitally, without its knowledge, to buy some books from a party stall during the pandemic.

The amount was later adjusted from the official’s salary, the NFPE said. But the postal department order said: “The association has not provided any evidence in this regard since how a personal transaction can be made from the account of the association.”

■ On the Rs 50,000 transferred to Citu’s account, the NFPE said the money had been sent to the World Federation of Trade Unions as affiliation fee through the CPM trade union organisation. The government rejected this argument too.

R.N. Parashar, former NFPE secretary-general, told this newspaper: “The NFPE (paid) the confederation, which helped the farmers’ protest. The NFPE cannot be held responsible.”

He clarified that the confederation was a non-registered organisation and was not bound by any government rules.

Parashar said that by derecognising a federation that has the support of 70 per cent postal employees, the government was trying to help the BPEF, which has the allegiance of hardly “five per cent” employees.

“The government is trying to promote the BPEF by this arbitrary decision to derecognise the NFPE,” Parashar said.

Former NFPE general secretary P. Suresh said: “Helping non-partisan agitations is part of the NFPE’s activities. The NFPE has been derecognised from time to time for protest activities but got its status restored.”

He added: “We have already challenged the latest order in Calcutta High Court and will file cases in other states.”

The NFPE was derecognised in 1960 for a protest over salaries, and in 1968 and during the Emergency over various agitations.

Viswam’s letter to theminister says: “This arbitrary and politically motivated decision to derecognise the two unions is not based on any law of the Parliament. The act of supporting another trade union or a democratic movement with like-minded objectives to secure rightsof workers, cannot be a reasonable ground for derecognition.

“Solidarity among various unions and workers of different sector(s) is an internationally accepted convention. Thus, derecognition compels one to think that the decision was made to deliberately target the unions without any regard to democratic norms, time-honoured conventions, laws and statesmanship.

“Considering the above, I urge you to withdraw the order of derecognition at the earliest to ensure protection of democratic rights of workers and to avoid discrimination with different trade unions.”

Citu said: “The NFPE and AIPEU have been consistently opposing and mobilising the employees in the postal sector against the destructive policies of the corporatisation and privatisation of the country’s postal services through multi-pronged routes through various forms of trade union actions.

“This has earned the wrath of the government and the entire conspiracy of derecognising the NFPE and AIPEU representing overwhelming majority of the employees in the sector, has been hatched by the concerned ministry and other agencies.”