Busmen get 7-day pay cut for strike days

Transport department officials said they had already issued circulars to all transport regions stating salary would not be disbursed to those who participated in the strike.

Around one lakh employees across the state had gone on strike from January 4 to 11 affecting public life. Workers who found out that their salaries had been deducted on Wednesday expressed dissatisfaction and claimed that they were not informed about the pay cut earlier by the government.

A Soundararajan, president of Tamil Nadu State Transport Employees Federation, said, “We will raise this issue with the government-appointed arbitrator in February and hope that we get back the deducted pay.”

When contacted by DTNext, PWC Davidar, Additional Chief Secretary (Transport), said the Transport department had already issued circulars regarding this to all the transport regions across the state. “Union leaders knew that salaries would be deducted but failed to pass on the information to workers,” he said.