Kolkata, Sep 18 (IANS) Coal India Limited (CIL) will Friday meet five of its trade unions and persuade them to withdraw their three-day strike from Sep 23 against the public sector undertaking’s proposed stake sale.

“We will meet the union leaders and hope the strike does not take place,” CIL personnel and industrial relations manager R.M. Das said here after the company’s 39th annual general meeting.
The trade unions operating in CIL and its subsidiaries Aug 20 served the strike notice against proposed disinvestment of five percent of CIL shares and to press for other demands.
The unions – Indian National Trade Union Congress, Hind Mazdoor Sabha, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, All India Coal Workers’ Federation and All India Trade Union Congress – represent about 90 percent of CIL’s 383,000-strong workforce.
CIL, the world’s largest miner producing over 80 percent of India’s coal, produced 452.21 million tonnes in 2012-13. The threatened strike, it is feared, would hit output to the tune of more than Rs.500 crore.

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