TN Secretariat staff resort to wildcat strike

The staff assembled before the front façade of Namakkal Kavignar Maligai at around 10 am much to the dismay of police personnel posted here.

A verbal altercation ensued between the Secretariat employees and the police whose attempts to talk to the protesters failed.

The participants resorted to sloganeering for about 2 hours while the ring leaders were seen holding discussions with the police now and then, and maintaining the crowd.

The peaceful protest was called off after Madurai bench of the Madras High Court that heard the deposition from the representatives of JACTTO-GEO passed orders against the protesters and directed them to join duty immediately.

The functionaries, who got the wind of the orders passed by the HC, deliberated it among themselves and reposed their faith in Judiciary as it pulled up the State on various aspects about the ongoing protests. Recalling the assurances made by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, who sought the JACTTO-GEO to drop their stir, the functionaries informed that they would call off their stir and join duty.

Four primary demands of the protesters are implementation of old pension scheme, wage revision as per 7th Pay Commission, provision of interim relief in case of delay in wage revision, and normalisation of time-scale pay from special time-scale pay.

Friday stir followed a meeting of the functionaries that took place on Thursday evening which was divided over joining the protest.

While some considered the series of meetings with the cabinet ministers, including the CM, was heading in the right direction, others were in line with the government which had agreed in principle to concede to the primary demands.