Unions reject minister’s interim relief, decide to go ahead with bus strike

“We have decided to go on strike as planned from Thursday as the interim relief announced by the Minister was not adequate to resolve the issues faced by the employees,” K Natarajan, treasurer of LPF, a DMK affiliated union said after holding an emergency meeting of nine transport trade unions.

The meeting was held after Minister Vijayabhaskar announced that the serving employees would be paid Rs 1,000 a month as an interim relief till the conclusion of the 14th wage revision talks.

“We had held two rounds of talks with the trade union for the revision of wages. After the strike was announced by the unions, I spoke to the Chief Minister and he has decided to provide an interim relief of Rs 1,000 per month and allocation of Rs 536 crore for the settlement of retirement benefits of the employees who retired from the service from January to April last year. We had paid Rs 972 crore last month for the employees who retired between April and December 2019. With this, we have paid retirement benefits of all the employees,” he said.

Nine transport unions, including DMK-affiliated LPF, CITU, AITUC and INTUC, have called for the strike over the government’s failure to conclude 14 wage revision talks, pending terminal benefits of the workers retired since 2020 and non-allocation of funds in the budget to compensate the losses incurred by the corporation which is a service sector.

Vijayabhasakar appealed to the trade unions to call off the strike. “However, we will operate the buses with the support of the union, including AIADMK-affiliated Anna Trade Union, to ensure no inconvenience is caused to the passengers,” he said.

The State transport corporations have warned of disciplinary actions against employees who take part in the indefinite strike called by the employees union from Thursday.