Telecom employees affiliated to Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited Employees Union (BSNLEU) on Tuesday commenced a district-wide signature campaign against the planned reintroduction of Pension Fund Regulatory Development Authority (PFRDA) Bill in the coming session of Parliament.
“The PFRDA Bill is the most obnoxious piece of legislation because it gives the government enormous power to unsettle one of the best social security schemes called pension,” Mohammed Jaffer, organizing secretary, BSNLEU (Tamil Nadu circle), told The Hindu.
According to him, the Bill, if enacted, will empower the Government to alter or even deny the present employees and pensioners the statutory defined benefit as in the case of those staff appointed after the cut-off date of April 1,2004, since the contribution of employees share for the years of service would be put in the stocks to generate pension.
“This new scheme, thus, will make the vagaries of the stock market to decide the pensioners' future which is unfortunate,” he said.
The BSNLEU plans to collect 25,000 signatures from BSNL employees, trade union representatives and general public in the district as part of the campaign.
“The signatures expressing the dissent over the Bill will be submitted to Lok Sabha speaker on November 25,” Mr. Jaffer said. To start with, the BSNLEU obtained the signature in support of their campaign from CPI(M) leader K. Thangavel, MLA.
