New Delhi: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on October 16 favoured a consensus over the issue of strike by government employees in the wake of the Supreme Court judgement on it.

At the 39th session of the Indian Labour Conference (ILC), INTUC president Sanjeeva Reddy and Leftist trade union leader Gurudas Das Gupta raised the issue of the dismissal of 6,000 government employees in Tamil Nadu and urged the Prime Minister to spell out the government's stand on the issue.

Vajpayee then said, "The apex court judgement has not been liked by you and perhaps I also do not like it. Some way has to be found out."

"All should sit together and find a way out. But those who want to shut the door on a consensus, we will not be able to go along with them," he said.

The Supreme Court had ruled earlier this year that government employees had no fundamental, legal, moral or equitable rights to go on strike.

PTI