Tangedco employees’ protest could cause hardship to public

CHENNAI: People should brace up for hardship, including power cuts, as the employees of Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) have announced a day-long waiting protest outside its office on July 20 for not holding wage revision talks.

In a statement, the Joint Action Committee of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board Trade Unions said that even after the wage settlement agreement expired on December 1, 2019, no talks were held with the unions to date.

A trade union representative said that employees are angered over the non-revision of the wage and talks were yet to begin. “In the last two years, we have given numerous letters to the Tangedco chairman and managing director and the electricity minister. A committee was formed to hold talks with the trade unions but it had not held one meeting, ” he said. He said that Tangedco is an essential department if the workers did not attend to the consumer complaints it would lead to power cuts.

JAC also wanted Tangedco to scrap the board proceeding 2 dated April 12, 2022, completely. It said that steps should be taken to fill up 56,000 vacancies. “The Tangedco should scrap its plan to engage end-to-end outsourcing in the upcoming North Chennai Thermal Power Station Stage 3 unit. The outsourcing in the substations should be stopped, ” it said.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Government Transport Corporation Employees Union announced that it would resort to strike if their demands including wage revision talks were not met. The union general secretary K Arumugha Nainar said that the transport department has invited the union for another round of talks on July 11. “If the talks are not satisfactory, we will decide on the next course of the protest, ” he said while leading a protest opposing the MTC move to engage drivers on a contract basis.