Transport dept likely to call unions for talks soon

Around 10 major unions announced the strike a couple of days ago accusing the state transport department of not fulfilling their major demands like wage increase and disbursal of arrears. The union members said that though they held eight rounds of talks with the transport officials, there is no proper outcome and it led them to take such a decision. 

K Arumugam Nainar, general secretary, Tamil Nadu State Transport Employees Federation, affiliated to CITU, said, “Even after we issued notice for strike, the transport department remains a mute spectator. We will meet transport employees in 14 zones across the state and explain to them the necessity for strike.” He also added that if the government would call for talks, they would cooperate, because they did not intentionally announce the strike. 

Similarly, K Natarajan, secretary, Labour Progressive Federation, said that the department did not accept our wage increase demand. “The officials said that a total of Rs 1,500 will be increased for the employees. However, as per our calculation, the department is increasing only Rs 700. Since there is a huge difference, we want a clarification from the government,” he said. 

When contacted by DT Next, V Krishnamurthy, Managing Director of MTC, and head  of transport department panel, said, “We will hold another round of talks after getting approval of transport minister MR Vijayabhaskar.” The MD also claimed that many important issues had already sorted out the and they would sort out remaining issues soon.

TMC leader G K Vasan on Monday asked the state government to immediately constitute a committee of officials of transport department, transport corporations and employees to fulfill their demands. 

In a statement here, Vasan, even without making a mention of the strike notice issued by employees, said the state people would be affected if the workers go on strike. Referring to the various demands of transport workers, Vasan said the demands remaining unfulfilled reveal the lethargic attitude of the state government.