Arbitration ends, transport workers hope for revision

Transport union leaders said they presented details about the recent wage revision for Electricity Board employees and they expect that wages will be revised to at least 2.50 factor for transport employees despite their original demand of increase by 2.57 factor. 

After the transport workers had gone on an indefinite strike in January over wage revision, the state government had approached the Madras High Court, which had appointed E Padmanabhan as arbitrator to adjudicate the dispute and subsequently the Transport Department had issued a Government Order on February 2. 

A Soundararajan, president of Tamil Nadu State Transport Employees Federation, said, “We are hoping that justice will be done for us and we have submitted necessary documents to the arbitrator, who looked into whether the demand of the workmen to have a multiplier factor of 2.57 instead of 2.44 is justified.” He added that everything will be out in the open soon, and they eagerly await the development. 

Meanwhile, some unions expect that the government will raise the multiplier factor to at least 2.50. K Anbazhagan, joint secretary of Nethaji Transport Union, said, “Since the government has agreed to the demand of EB employees over the wage revision, we believe that the multiplier factor will be 2.50 instead of 2.57.”