Metro union plans stir against outsourcing

“We have been opposing the Metro management move to appoint outsourced workers in place of the station controllers for quite some time. Now they have gone ahead with their decision to appoint the workers on the contract basis in nine stations. We will be holding a demonstration against the move this week. If necessary, we will go for the strike as well,” said R Elangovan, vice-president of the CITU-affiliated CMRL Employees Union.

After the Metro management started outsourcing the jobs, the station controllers were the only permanent workers in the station while other jobs including ticket issuing, signalling and cleaning were outsourced.

A CMRL official said that the outsourced employees would be appointed as station in-charge in the place of the station controller as part of its move to cut cost. “They would be appointed in the nine stations including six in Central-St Thomas Mount corridor. The workers would be paid a salary of Rs 22,000 to Rs 25,000 as against the salary of Rs 50,000 received by the permanent staff,”the official said.