Smash the union

Essential services can never be held to ransom to the threat of an illegal strike by employees

Thanks to the timely intervention of Delhi High Court late on Friday, major chaos in the Capital which would have given a harrowing time to lakhs of Delhi Metro commuters and caused massive economic damage has been averted. Approximately 9,000 non-executive employees — train drivers, station controllers, maintenance staff and technicians — of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) who were protesting since 19 June in favour of their demands had announced they would strike work on Saturday and paralyse all metro services that day. The Court stepped in, just in the nick of time, to restrain the unionised employees from taking this illegal step to relief all around. As the High Court pointed out, “prima facie the action of the employees was not justified or legal since sufficient notice had not been given to the DMRC.”

There are three broad points to be made on employees’ right to strike work. First, that strikes as a mode of protest should be the very last resort and demonstrably so. Secondly, that a strike call must follow all procedures laid out including giving due notice to the management. Thirdly, employees of essential services cannot be allowed the right to strike on the principle of greater public good. The abortive strike call by the DMRC union masquerading as an ‘association’ fails on all three counts.

Nevertheless, the strike call is a visible manifestation of the deep fissures between the DMRC and its non-executive staff whose demands include a higher pay package in line with the third pay revision scale, the upgradation of the DMRC Staff Council to the status of an employees’ union, revision of guidelines for termination of service of employees among others.

In effect, they want the sinecures that were known as Government jobs in the pseudo-socialist years with minimal accountability and discipline but the compensation packages and perks of the private sector with its emphasis on performance and delivery. This dichotomy is at the root of the issue and the blame for that must be shared. For, while we do strongly condemn the self-serving demands of the employees, the management too is to blame for not showing the spine to iterate at every available opportunity that there is no place for a chalta hai attitude or union baazi at the DMRC which benchmarks itself against top private/public sector organisations and not decrepit, unaccountable sarkari ones or fly-by-night operators.  An amicable solution to end the current agitation must be found, of course. The smart place is always to be on the right side of the argument — the workers must get their due as far as their demands are genuine but the union must be crushed.