Speech made by mrs. Sandhya rani, ips, postmaster
general,
(business development & technology) ap circle, as chief guest
in the women’s convention held at hyderabad on 09.06.2013, in connection with
the 9th federal council of nfpe
President of the
National Federation of Postal Employees Women’s Convention, Mrs. Shakunthala,
distinguished guests on the dais, leaders and invitees who have come from across
the country to attend the 9th
Federal Council
meeting of the National Federation of Postal Employees, ladies and gentlemen, my
heartfelt greetings to all of you. It is a pleasure to be here with you today
and I would like to thank the organizers for inviting me.
From the time I
joined the Department of Posts as an young officer some 25 years ago, many
changes have come in, especially in the role, approach and scope of Trade union
activism. The nature of industrial relations and collective bargaining has also
changed in the light of globalization, technology, changed business processes,
etc.
I would like to
share, my thoughts with you today in the context of three broad themes –
i. The first
one relates to Women & Trade Union movement in the Indian context,
ii. The
2nd
one is
about women in Department of posts,
iii. Thirdly I
will touch briefly upon about the significant organizational changes underway in
Dept.of Posts and possible responses while balancing our personal aspirations
and staff unions’ concerns.
In the context of
Women and Trade Union movement, the questions that are often asked are:
inadequate women’s participation, equality of women, discrimination in
workplace, lack of adequate safeguards for women employees, continuing with the
responsibility of housework, etc. Women in our country, as elsewhere in the
world, have been discriminated against in every sphere – within the family, at
the workplace, in society and in public/political participation. Women are
increasingly joining the workforce to supplement family income, especially in
urban areas. In rural areas they have always participated in agriculture labour
and related works.
According to the
Directorate General of Employment and Training in 2005, among the 393 lakh
job-seekers enrolled with them, only 106 lakhs are female job seekers. In other
words female job seekers account for only about 27% of the total job
seekers. This is also indicative of the fact that much of the employment of
women is in unorganized sector pushing them into exploitative and low end jobs.
Increased
employment in organized sector, while empowering women to earn higher incomes,
and take up challenging jobs, has also made them to more vulnerable to stress,
struggle to balance work and home life and sometimes to sexual harassment in
different forms. Further, either due to personal choices or due to the
intangible glass ceiling operating very few women are found in higher managerial
positions.
Overall the
unionized labour is a very small number in our country, (less than 2%
according to ILO in year 2000). According to the National Sample Survey
Organisation (NSSO), in 1999-2000 out of total workforce of 397 million, only 28
million workers were employed in the formal sector and thus formally unionized.
Active participation of women in labour union movement has been historically
very low. In recent times with overall decreasing union memberships, far lesser
number of women join them or actively participate in the TU deliberations on
regular basis. With few of them attending regular TU meetings it is not
unexpected that issues of concern to women employees do not get center stage in
union items. Women are also under-represented at all levels of union leadership
and decision-making.
I believe that
Trade Union leadership can and should do much more to encourage and
facilitate participation of women in trade union activities. Being effective
home makers ensures that women have certain refined skills, especially at
balancing competing interests/concerns, negotiating impossible situations.
Hence, they should be encouraged to take up leadership roles in the Union
actively. Issues relating to women should also get center stage, like lack of
amenities in work places, exploitation, especially of unorganized contingent
women employees, often working long hours and not drawing even minimum wages,
etc. should be taken up actively. At the policy level, Trade Unions can also
take up the case of special investment opportunities for female employees with
say higher interest rates. This will help the women become more secure and
empowered as well as greater productive investments will be made for development
of the country. Another area that TUs can also pushing for a special bench or
special sessions of CAT and higher Courts to be held periodically to handle
cases field by Women employees on priority, so that they are not required to
miss office or use personal/home time in running around CAT and other courts.
Trade Unions should facilitate greater leadership development and Training for
its Women members.
My second theme
relates to women employees in Department of Posts. As per census of
Central Govt. Employees, only 7.53% of total Central Govt. Employees are women.
However, an interesting aspect of this is that in Communications and IT sector,
the share of women employees is 12.20%. It is p[ossible that in some Circles,
especially in South India, the percentage of women employees could be 30-50%.
Surprisingly in Railways Women employees are only 4.63% of the total work-force.
Considering the number of railway employees being the largest of the central
govt. work force, in actual numbers this would be much higher than many
departments. It is seen that in AP postal Circle less than 15% of total
departmental staff are women.
In the Department
of Posts there are several issues of concern to women employees working
as GDS, Post Women, Postal Assistants, Post masters, Supervisors,
Inspectors & Officers. Some of these are lack of basic amenities in
post offices, restrictions relating to rule-38 or rotational transfers under
spouse category, child care leave not being granted on administrative grounds,
posting of women in night sets, increasing number of cases of sexual harassment
at work place etc. Issues relating to women GDS employees and especially of the
unorganized sector contingent women employees like sweepers, water women,
scavengers, etc. which do not even form part of the Trade Union activism.
Women employees
face typical unreasonable biases in the department like the perception of
not being as capable as men at work. Sometimes one comes across Supervisors
asking for male members in the team so that they can sit late hours to complete
work! I do not obviously agree with that view. Women employees are by and large
committed and sincerely attend to their work. They are the best asset that the
department has. However, we do come across instances of lack of adequate
sensitivity in dealing with women employees in the department.
For instance,
majority of our POs are C class POs, usually located in rural areas, which
lack basic amenities or facilities. Instructions exist about hiring good
buildings. But sometimes practically such buildings are not available. Ideally,
as a policy all Departmental POs should have own buildings with proper
facilities, considering that Government is a model employer. While this is not
always feasible, considering the resource gaps, the Divisional Heads should
ensure that buildings with basic amenities are hired, or landlord should be
insisted upon to provide basic amenities. Further, Divisional Head should also
keep in mind availability of basic facilities in a PO, while considering posting
women employees there.
While the Central
govt. rules require posting of spouses to the same station, as far as
possible, in practice there are lot of gaps in implementing these instructions.
The restrictive handling of Rule 38 requests under Spouse category based on lack
of vacancy, non-fulfillment of minimum 5 years condition for granting Rule-38
transfer, etc. should be used sparingly by the competent authority. Sometimes
adequate managerial posts may not be available, but for the operative staff as
far as possible spouse category requests should be accommodated.
Another service
condition that comes to mind is the recognition that women as the principal home
maker and allows them child care leave. Though every women employee is
entitled to avail 730 days of child-care leave during her entire service, in
practicality it is not being granted owing to various administrative reasons.
While the shortage of staff is one reason, the other one is the reluctance of
the fellow employees to undertake additional responsibility if one among them is
badly in need of child-care leave and wants to avail it immediately. I must
confess that I am personally not a great advocate of child care leave as an
entitlement, and that it should be taken with great responsibility. However, I
do recognize that there will be certain conditions in an employee’s life that
may require granting of the same without delay. Women employees should use this
privilege judiciously and should be allowed to do so.
It is true that
there are certain areas of work where women are given priority in the
department. One such thing that comes to my mind relates to Compassionate
appointments. Such appointments are restricted to 5% in case of departmental
employees, but for Grameen Dak Sewaks there are no such restrictions. While
assessing eligibility for compassionate appointment special consideration is
given to wife of the deceased employee in terms of calculation of points, as
well as selection. Under the definite, accurate and transparent yard-sticks to
assess the extent of indigent circumstances of the family of the deceased
employee, points are awarded to various attributes relating to indigent
circumstances. Any case which scores 51 points merit selection. IN an obvious
and encouraging policy guidelines for ensuring that dependent women get a better
chance, if the wife of the deceased is the claimant for compassionate
appointment and not her children; 15 additional points are awarded in her case
automatically. This boosts her chances of getting the compassionate appointment.
Trade Unions can do much to promote awareness about this provision among all GDS
employees and their families.
There are many
women centric issues that TUs should take up provision of Crèche/day care
facility at or near work place with more than 10 women employees; rest
room/change room facility, annual medical checkup for over 40 years women,
taking a clear and uncompromising stand against sexual harassment at work place,
etc.
The third and last
theme that I would like to touch upon today relates to the significant
organizational changes that Department of Posts is undergoing. The issues
that I would like to highlight relate to the approach of all officers and
employees, especially women employees in meeting the emerging challenges. With
an aim to retain the existing customer base and also win new clientele and
businesses several innovative technologies are being put in place. Huge amount
of technological changes are emerging in the department. The Core System
Integration applications, Core Banking Solutions, the new initiatives relating
to mail operations are going to herald major changes in the way we do work in
the Department. With this, the work culture of the Department will see a
sea-change. The departmental employees and GDS at different levels need to rise
to the challenge and do their best to make this as smooth as possible. Officers,
Post Masters and Supervisors need to work with their System
Administrators and
PAs as a team to reach higher standards of performance. With an aspiration to
provide the last mile connectivity to all kinds of services, 1,30,000 Branch
Post Offices are going to be provided with Hand held devises. It will certainly
make the life of GDS Branch Post Masters relatively easy, especially in terms of
book keeping. But it would also mean greater responsibility.
In the emerging
changes in the technological and business environment, we need to work in teams,
understand our individual roles, educate and skill our fellow colleagues. Unfair
expectations of the administration, if any, could surely be challenged. But we
all should work towards realizing the positive objectives of the major projects
underway in the Department of Posts. That is the only hope for us to remain
relevant as an organization and play significant role in the development of our
country.
While at the
micro level we all should work towards making work places more safe and
secure for women employees, there is an extra responsibility on all of us to
welcome the inevitable changes in a positive manner and skill ourselves
adequately to meet the changing needs of the internal and external environment.
I am sure in the Federal Council meetings all related issues will be discussed
in thread bare and based on your respective ideological positions certain policy
decisions will be taken. I request that while balancing personal
expectations/aspirations of the cross section of employees, the organizational
interests/requirements need to be kept in mind.
In the final I
believe each one of us should ask ourselves the question to what extent
we are making work places safe, empowering and invigorating to women employees.
And we each need to do our bit to enhance the same in which ever office we are
working in.
I wish all the
participants at the Federal Council meeting and especially women employees
interesting discussions and courage to take challenging decisions and work
towards achieving the same.
I thank the
organizers once again for inviting me to this Women’s Convention.
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