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
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 themchild 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 SystemAdministrators
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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