Strike to demand rights of disabled Tasmac staff

According to P Ariyakumar, the general secretary of the Tamil Nadu Association for the Rights of All Types of Differently-Abled and Caregivers (TARATDAC), there are around 600 differently-abled employees currently occupying temporary positions in the State.

“They clock in 10 hours every day without gaining additional benefits because they are temporary staff,” he said.

A GO issued in 2008 said that the workers should be made permanent employees. “We even met the CM seeking his intervention in this regard. In 2010, we went on a daylong strike. But nothing has made them to implement the GO for over a decade now,” Ariyakumar added.

The members of the association said that those physically-challenged people employed at the age of 25-30 years. “Now, they are in the 40-45 age group. The work is taxing but still they are expected to perform lot of work,” he charged, pointing out that the income slab for these employees was between Rs 6,800 and Rs 8,200 per month.