This story is from July 21, 2018

Unions banned in all West Bengal jails

Unions banned in all West Bengal jails
Representative image
KOLKATA: The Bengal government has dislodged the powerful union system that used to hold the state’s prisons in a vice-like grip.
A detailed circular, issued on Thursday, has stipulated that “no union activities (are going) to be allowed in uniformed services at any correctional home premises” and no prison establishment can be used for union activities. Unions cannot even put up signboards or notice boards inside prison premises.
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The move to defang unions in prisons comes six years after the Trinamool government banned unions in the police force in 2012.
The government has been forced to move the division bench of the Calcutta High Court after a single-judge bench struck down that ban.
But this latest circular shows the government’s “intent and determination to de-unionise” sectors where ground-level staff often have to take orders from union leaders and not their office superiors, say officials. “For any uniformed force, which is responsible for public safety and security, there has to be a single command structure. The unions are a parallel command structure and that comes in the way of day-to-day functioning,” a senior correctional services department official said.

The Siddhartha Shankar Ray government was the first to ban unions in the police force in 1975 but this decision was overturned by the Left Front government two years later.
Thursday’s notification bans all meetings, agitations and deputations by unions in correctional homes. All this, say officials, will put an end to the practice of union leaders and members going off work for attending “union-related work”. “No employees should be extended the privilege of exemption from routine/administrative transfer” because they are union members, the order adds.
“We have also formed the West Bengal Correctional Services Welfare Board,” ex-officio director-general of police (correctional services) Arun Kumar Gupta said. “This board will be responsible for employees’ welfare and an officer of deputy inspector-general rank will monitor the board’s activities,” he added. The notification to form the board came on July 13 and the de-unionisation order followed a week later.
Ironically, the notification has hit the Trinamool’s prison union the hardest and the Paschim Banga Rajya Sarkari Karmachari Federation (Jail Wing) says it will oppose the government’s move. “We merged two unions (the officers’ wing and the warders’ wing) to form one single union in March 2017 in the presence of the party’s senior leadership. This is suicidal,” a senior union leader said. “We will wait for the outcome of the case regarding police unions and then take appropriate legal steps,” he added. The notification, he claimed, was faulty because it was contrary to the West Bengal Service Rules.
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