Pay disparity: Secondary grade teachers announce hungry strike

CHENNAI: Urging Chief Minister MK Stalin to fulfil his election promises on equal pay for equal work to secondary-grade teachers (SGT), members of Secondary Grade Seniority Teacher’s Association (SSTA) have announced a hunger strike on December 27. Meanwhile, SSTA has already conducted a regional meeting in Villupuram on December 4 and another is planned in Karur on December 11.

SGTs allege that teachers appointed after June 2009 are facing a pay discrepancy of Rs 3,170 for the same amount of work with those appointed before 2009. Further, in the seventh pay commission, this discrepancy had further widened.

The statement from SSTA read, “The Supreme Court has given a verdict in various cases that people holding the same position and doing the same job should be given equal pay for equal work. But, this was neither followed by the previous AIADMK government nor at present by the DMK government.”

The statement further pointed out they have been protesting regarding the pay disparity for more than a decade. “In 2018, owing to an indefinite hunger strike and little intervention from the AIADMK government, the then opposition leader Stalin urged the government to pay equal salary for equal work to about 20,000 teachers in the State,” the statement added.

However, despite SSTA repeatedly petitioning both the School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi and CM, no action has been taken, from the same party that promised to resolve the issue during assembly election 2021.

It is to be noted that currently those teachers appointed before 2009 are being paid Rs 11,170 and those appointed after are given Rs 8,000, for the same work and qualification.

“As a result of no response from the DMK government, we have announced a hunger strike and urge the government to fulfil our demands at the earliest,” noted the SSTA statement.