SAD NEWS
Com Sudhir Kumar Hanuman,Ex Branch Secretary, R4 of Jharsuguda RMS is no more. He passed away yesterday evening at his Jharsuguda house at his age of 67-68 years.
He was Branch Secretary R4, Jharsuguda for many years.
He was a very stunch member of NFPE all along his service life and participated in all the strikes and struggles. He retired in the year 2015.
He was very simple and silent in nature but very sincere in duty. He never failed to attend any meeting like CWCs/DWCs or Conferences like Division/Circle and All India .
All India RMS & MMS Employees Union Group 'C' CHQ convey heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family members of Late Com Sudhir Hanuman .
Pradip U.Khadse
General Secretary
Com.B.K.Bannerjee
A Tribute to Com.B.K.Banerjee on 14-04-2021
A great leader of the P&T Movement
BIRTH ANNIVERSARY
Com.B.K.Banerjee was born on 14 April 1930 and he joined the Post and
Telegram department as a clerk in RMS in 1950 – at Nagpur. It was but
natural that being in Nagpur he came in contact of Comrade N.J Iyer who
was then active in the central circle as a big leader. In those days
the service conditions of the RMS and MMS employees were poor that there
was no weekly off, no fix working hours, no overtime and pay was
meagre. Com B.K Banerjee has decided to fight against all sorts of
exploitation of Postal and RMS employees under the guidance of
Com.N.J.Iyer.
Com B.K Bnerjee first of all formed a team of active
local union workers of Posts, RMS and MMS and telephone department
prominent amongst them were Com.V.W.Mohril, N.H Soni, A.R Jaiswal,
Acharpohare, Bhakru Fattu, W.G – Umathe, S.L Sharma, P.K Roy, V.P
Tiwari, R.K.Singh, M.K. Despande, M.A Mahore and so many others to join
him in the path of struggle. He formed a joint council of all trade
unions of Nagpur city which was including P&T, Railway, State Govt.
employees and he became a Convener.
After the Bifurcation of
central circle Nagpur came under Maharashtra Circle. So After 1970 he
expanded his union activities in other parts of Maharashtra.
I came
in contact with him in July 1972 in Bombay in the Divisional Conference
of RMS ‘L’ division which was held in Chinch bunder P.O. Building. He
was a guest speaker in the conference where as I was a delegate from
Manmad RMS branch.
Thereafter he was elected
as a circle president in Kolhapur circle Conference in February 1977
and subsequently elected as a circle secretary of Maharashtra circle in
February 1982 and became A.G.S in the Pune AIC held
Pune in Nov
1982. After being elected as a circle secretary of Maharashtra circle he
undertook extensive tour programme of the whole Maharashtra circle
joining with him leaders of respective divisional secretaries and branch
leaders. He used to deliver his speech in hindi in such a beautiful
manner that many new entrants and workers had joined our union making in
biggest in membership of all over India.
Com.B.K.Banerjee was having deep and update knowledge of Govt.orders,
rules and regulations of the P&T department. He has an ability to
quickly solve the problems of workers.
While Com.Banerjee being
active in Nagpur in December 1973 there took place a agritation of
central and state Govt. employees for the supply of 12kg wheat per
adult. At that time five thousand railway workers sat on railway track
in Ajni Railway station for fulfillment of their demand of 12kg
wheat/rice. Com.B.K.Banerjee was arrested for being a chairman of the
Central Govt. Coord. Committee but he was released subsequently after
the police realized that the entire Nagpur City was on the verge of
being totally closed.
Similarly when in the 1974 Railway
strike the police has evacuated the railway employees from their
quarters, Com. B.K Banerjee met the Muncipal Commissioner to meet the
demand of their food and shelter. Com. Banerjee challenged the RMS
re-organisation scheme in April 1984 when there was a move to close the
sorting sections and to convert them into transit, with other harmful
measures of the P&T Board to abolish record offices, merger of SROs
into HROs, concentration of mail in district mail offices thereby
creating huge surplus and resulting of RMS employees from their places
of work. He has given power of attorney to me to fight case on his
behalf in the Bombay High Court. The court has partly accepted our plea
and orders for not to transfer the employees from one district to
another.
Com Banerjee appeared before the arbitration to plea the
case of increase the overtime rate of RMS employees. He won the case in
favor of the employees as
the arbitration award agreed to recommend
the case to increase OT rate 1.5 times more than the time rate which was
made effective from 1/4/1991 from rupees 4.85 per hour to 15 per hour.
In April 1985 Com.B.K Banerjee was elected as a general secretary
of All India RMS and MMS employees class lll at Jabalpur conference. In
that conference a decision was made to go on one day token strike on 6
June 1985 against the attacks of the Government upon RMS and MMS
services. The strike was a big success.
He successfully organized a
general strike on 16 June 1992 against the policy of privitisation of
Govt. of India as well as he organized a Postal strike in December 1993
to achieve the demands of ED employees.
Com.B.K. Banerjee has
started publishing hindi version of RMS workers so as to spread the
rank and file of the hindi speaking states in addition to the English
version. He took extensive tour of branches all over India to collect
the CHQ building fund in 1988 – 1989 and fully succeeded in his goal of
collecting sufficient flat in Ghaziabad Development Authority which was
completed in the year 1997.
Unfortunately he was met with a road
accident in Delhi in December 1994 and subsequently died in a hospital
on 20 – 12 – 1994. The stories of so many struggles his life time cannot
be covered in two pages but his spirit of definitely inspire to the
future generation active in the field of trade union movement.
P.S Pande
Ex Pesident R lll, CHQ
All Circle, Divisional and Branch Secretaries are requested to hold meetings in memory of Com B.K.Bannerjee
Pradip U.Khadse
General Secretary
