A war of nerves between the State Government and some of the trade unions over a demand for 0.13 per cent hike in salary of transport employees has disrupted normal life in Tamil Nadu since last Thursday. The DMK and the CPI(M)-led employees of the State Transport Corporation launched a flash strike on Thursday demanding a hike of 2.7 per cent in their wages while the Government agreed to offer 2.44 per cent hike.
Though MR Vijayabhaskar, Minister for Transport, claims that 80 per cent of the buses were plying, the fact is that nearly 70 per cent of the 22,000 buses owned by the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation remain off the roads because of the strike.
Chennai city which has a population of 5 million is serviced by 3,200 STC buses. Since the workers went on strike, there are only 500 buses on the roads in the metropolis.
Though a division bench of the Madras High Court asked the striking employees to return to work on Friday citing the hardships faced by the commuters, the trade union leaders feigned ignorance about such an order and said they would approach the court on Monday to explain their stance.
The strike has come at a time when the State is getting ready to celebrate Pongal, the Tamil national festival, which falls on January 14. This is the time of the year when people travel to their hometowns and the ongoing agitation has upset their traveling plans as well as festivities.
Even as 32 trade unions signed a pact for pay revision with the State Government on January 4, a cartel of 14 unions refused to accept the proposals put forward by the Government and declared the flash strike. “The Government did not agree to our demand for 2.57 per cent wage hike once in three years. The officials agreed to revise it to 2.40 per cent. After deliberations, they agreed to revise it to 2.44 per cent which is not acceptable to us,” said DMK leader M Shanmugham who heads the party’s trade union wing LPF.
According to Vijaya Narayan, advocate general, the wage revision in Tamil Nadu is held once in every three years while wages in State public sector enterprises are revised once in every four years. The salary of Government employees are revised once in every ten years, he disclosed. The new pact signed on last Thursday envisages a hike of Rs 10,322 in the monthly pay of drivers while the salaries of conductors, technicians, and ministerial staff would go up by Rs 11,361/-, Rs 11,948/- and Rs 12,566/- respectively.
The Tamil Nadu legislative Assembly is meeting on Monday for the customary address of the Governor. The Opposition DMK with its allies is planning to create a show down in the House to embarrass the Edappadi Palaniswamy Government which is already facing a crisis due to the internal dissension in the ruling AIADMK.
Till the agitation by the Transport employees remain unsettled, travellers from outside the State who are planning for the Pongal festivities are in for major trouble.