Opposition transport trade unions have called for a State-wide strike on February 25 over the government’s failure to conclude wage talks.
A joint press release, issued by nine transport trade unions, including the LPF, the CITU and the INTUC, called for a strike covering eight State Transport Undertakings (STUs), including the Metropolitan Transport Corporation. It also listed the unions’ key demands.
The members of the unions pointed out that the most recent wage agreement ended on September 1, 2019, and wage talks hadn’t been held for two years. They demanded wage parity with other government employees, allotment of adequate funds by the State government instead of loans, improvement of the overall situation of the Transport Department and immediate settlement of retirement benefits.
The unions alleged that over ₹8,000 crore in provident fund amount, belonging to transport workers, had been used for running the STUs.
As the current Assembly was set to end and the election date was expected to be announced shortly, they had been reiterating their demand on the wage talks since December last year. They had earlier called for a strike on December 3, but didn’t carry it out due to “social responsibility”, the unions said.
