In my office there is discrimination between staff and officer cadre employees office Timings

Sir, in my office, there is discrimination between staff and officer cadre employees. Officer cadre employees arrive in the office from 08:30 to 17:00 with the 2nd and 4th Saturday off, in addition to Sunday as their weekly day off. On the other hand, staff cadre employees work from 08:00 to 17:00 and only have Sunday off weekly.

We have made several requests to our head of the department for similar timings, but he is not considering our plea regarding this discrepancy in schedules. Is it feasible to have different timings within the same office when the nature of work is the same? Please help us resolve this matter.

Dear Soni,

There cannot be a comparison among incomparables.

The service conditions of officers and managers are determined by their contracts of employment or the separate service regulations applicable to their cadre.

The term 'staff' is a misnomer for employees falling within the ambit of the definition 'workman' u/s 2(s) of the ID Act, 1947 but doing clerical work or a kind of work analogous to it.

Just because officers and clerical staff happen to work in the same premises, it is not necessary that their signing-in and signing-off time should be the same. Clerical staff, if required to work beyond the normal working hours, are entitled to overtime wages whereas officers are not because of their predominant nature of supervisory work.

Of course, you have the right to demand a revision of working hours based on any point of justification but not in comparison with a higher cadre of employees.

Dear Soni,

Do you receive the same salary as others are getting? Similarly, the salaries of all officers and managers are not the same. Can we call this discrimination? No, it is not discrimination at all.

You cannot simply say there is discrimination between staff and officer cadre employees because their service conditions must be different. It can be considered discrimination if staff cadres are not given weekly off days and are asked to work more than 8 hours.

Our acts and laws allow for these discriminations by dividing the workforce into different categories. Employees working at the headquarters are eligible for certain facilities, whereas employees in branch offices and field employees are not. Similarly, certain facilities provided to employees working in branch offices and fields are not extended to employees working at the headquarters. All these cannot be considered discrimination but rather differences in work conditions due to situations.

Your demand for parity in cadres of employees is not justified.