Thursday, February 12, 2015

Transport unions on warpath again

Nearly 20 trade unions of transport employees will serve a strike notice on February 16 as the government is not ready to hold negotiations on wage revision immediately.
The unions, including the LPF and CITU, took the decision after a two-hour-long meeting with members.
On Saturday, the unions will hold agitations in front of all transport zonal head offices, including Metropolitan Transport Corporation.
“We will be giving two week’s time after issuing strike notice to the government to fix a date for talks. If they fail to meet our demands, we will announce the strike date,” said T.Balakrishnan, general secretary, CITU, MTC branch. Earlier in the day, union leaders told reporters after meeting the committee, led by IAS officer P. Umanath in Chromepet, that the government was not keen on settling the issue affecting 1.50 lakh transport employees. According to government officials, they received memorandums from the trade unions and sought time to go through them and work out a financial package. As the amount would be in hundreds of crores, the committee would have to first study the demands and take it up with the government, a negotiating officer said.
“Workers were deprived of their hike from September 2013 and trade unions had displayed immense patience before organising a four-day strike last month,” said A. Soundararajan, CITU State president.
“We have made 45 demands including 25 per cent wage hike and regularisation of services for workers,” said M. Ganesan, secretary, All India Forward Bloc Motor Workers Union .

No comments: