The Management of India's largest pharmaceutical company, Ranbaxy, and the union of its sales representatives came to an agreement last week to resolve the long-term wage issue which was raised by the union in its eighth charter of demands.


Rajesh Vaidya, director-HR and Dinesh Jumrani, GM-HR of the company and the leaders of Ranbaxy Council of the Federation of Medical and Sales Representatives Association of India (FMRAI) signed the agreement on April 20 in Mumbai. The union leaders included P N Subrahmanian, All India Convenor of Ranbaxy Council of Field workers, Sanjive Khandelwal, joint convener and M K Bhowmik, east zone convener who attended the crucial meeting officially.


Under the agreement, according to P N Subrahmanian, the field workers will receive 20 to 40 per cent salary increase with retrospective effect from January 1, 2010, plus other benefits including HRA and variable dearness allowance. Those who were drawing Rs.18000 will now get Rs.21000 and Rs.32000 to those who received Rs.25000. This increment will benefit about 850 sales representative of the company working in various parts of the country. The settlement period is three years from 01-01 -2010 to 01-12-2012.


He said this is the 25th time in the last one and a half years that the union leaders held discussions with the company management on grounds of wage issues. He added that there were more than two thousand sales representatives working for Ranbaxy in India, but only 850 are recognized by the union.


The Tamil Nadu convenor of the union, V Vasudevan said 82 Ranbaxy field workers in the state will avail of the benefit and in Kerala 44 workers are in the list. He said the salary hikes range from Rs.3000 to Rs.7500 based on the experiences of the employees.


While speaking to Pharmabiz, the All India Convenor of Ranbaxy Council of FMRAI said the union and the company have reached into an agreement on a change of reporting pattern of the field workers. Earlier the workers were reporting their daily activities in material form, which has now been converted into electronic reporting, either by mobile phone or by internet.


The eighth charter of demands of the union contained salary hike, dearness allowance and house rent allowances. According to the union leaders, the terms agreed upon April 20 will be formally brought into effect from next Month onwards.