Arun Singh in talks with unions
Ostensibly under oil ministry instructions, ONGC chairman Arun Singh is meeting unions to address growing discontent.
One meeting took place on July 22 (2024), and another was scheduled for July 24 (2024). But the gesture backfired as unions representing disadvantaged communities were angry they were excluded.
"We have simply not been invited," complains C Sethupathi, national president of the OBC & MOBC Employees Welfare Association at ONGC. Other Backward Classes, or OBCs, represent socially and educationally disadvantaged communities across India.
An OBC leader complains that top management won't hear unresolved OBC concerns this time. Another source adds that unions representing other underprivileged communities in the SC/ST (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) category did not receive invites.
However, ASTO central working committee president Nishant Kumar did meet Singh on July 22 (2024). "It was good," says an ASTO source, without elaborating.
On July 24 (2024), other regional unions were meant to meet Singh. One of them, the ONGC Officers Association (OOA), is manoeuvring to become the primary negotiator for officers, with ambitions to replace ASTO.
On July 11 (2024), the OOA wrote to HR director Manish Patil, arguing that ASTO's jurisdiction must remain limited to Dehradun, citing an ONGC affidavit in the Gauhati High Court. "The current registration confines ASTO's legal standing to Dehradun in Uttarakhand, limiting its ability to represent and address the grievances of its members effectively in other states," says the OOA letter.
ONGC has had a fraught relationship with unions in the recent past. In June 2024, unions protested an ONGC management move to unilaterally compel workers to remain offshore for 21 days instead of 14 during the monsoon.