A FEW days back, the Narendra Modi government has amended the Public Sector Recruitment Rules retrospectively providing for appointment of candidates from the private sector, to very senior management positions in the central public sector undertakings and also in the PESB (Public Sector Enterprise Selection Board). Obviously, the profit-making blue chip PSUs are the target of the Modi government in this regard. The government's argument is that this will help CPSUs in getting ‘capable and efficient’ hands from the private sector.

THE All India Loco Running Staff Association has written to the minister of railways, Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu on the reigning hot summer in our country and its adverse effect on the safety, health and work place environment of the loco pilots of Indian railway. According to the reports of the meteorological department, an increase of about 2 degrees to 6 degrees centigrade above normal in atmospheric temperature has been recorded in our country during this summer season compared to the past and it is anticipated that the condition would prevail until the arrival of normal monsoon.

22-year-old construction worker named Devendra, from Jharkhand, was killed in an accident at the AP temporary secretariat complex construction site at Velagapudi village on May 10 where a Government Interim Complex (temporary secretariat) is being constructed.The incident took place when the worker was cleaning a cement mixer with a crow bar. He was trying to clean the inside of the drum when he was sucked in and got crushed to death. It has emerged later that the worker was not wearing the mandatory crash helmet.

THE flash strike by the garment workers in Bangalore and Visakhapatnam, almost simultaneously in the month of April attracted wide attention. The significant features of the strikes were - all these workers were women, they were not members of any trade union and no trade union led the strike in either place. In both the places, the major issue was the government notification banning withdrawal of their money from their PF accounts till retirement.19,000 workers in the Brandix India Apparel City in the Atchutapuram Special Economic Zone in Visakhapatnam were on strike from April 15, 2016.

SINCE the middle of February, 2016, more than one crore beedi workers, mainly in the rural areas, have lost their meagre daily earnings due to shut down by beedi manufacturers in protest against the health ministry’s notification increasing the size of pictorial health warning on tobacco containing products including beedis. This is taking place at a time when vast rural areas in different states are reeling under draught and the rural people are deprived of their earnings from agriculture and the failure of MNREGA to provide alternative jobs in rural areas.