Transport corporation trade unions to strike work from January 9
The strike call was given hours after Transport Minister SS Sivasankar appealed to the unions to call off their protest.
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CHENNAI: Ahead of the Pongal festival, the trade unions affiliated with CITU and Anna Thozhir Sangam in the transport corporation have announced an indefinite strike from Tuesday, January 9 following the failure of the conciliation talks held by the joint labour commissioner on Wednesday.
The strike call was given hours after Transport Minister SS Sivasankar appealed to the unions to call off their protest.
Speaking to reporters, CITU state president A Soundararajan said that all the trade unions which attended the talks demanded the transport corporations fulfil at least one out of their six demands - to hike the dearness allowance for the retired employees before Pongal, even that was not agreed by the corporations.
"The retired employees were denied a hike in the DA for the past eight years. Several negotiations were held but it was not resolved. Now against the transport corporation officials were seeking time to resolve it. It is totally unacceptable. Hence all the unions together decided to strike work from January 9," he said.
The conciliation talks were held between trade unions and transport corporations represented by the officials including SETC MD, MTC MD in the presence of a joint labour commissioner.
The trade unions have given strike notice demanding fulfilment of a six-point-charter of demands including the state government compensating the losses suffered by the transport corporations, the hike of retired employee's dearness allowance, filling up of vacancies, implementation of old pension scheme and commencement of 15th wage agreement talks.
On Wednesday, Transport Minister SS Sivasankar urged the transport corporation's trade unions to call off their proposed strike and promised to resolve the issues after the Pongal festival. In an appeal to all the trade unions in the transport corporations, he assured that the DMK government would resolve the demands of both the serving and retired employees through talks after the Pongal festival holidays.
"Hence I request the trade unions and workers to call their protest, " he requested.