'Bus strike to go on till staff get Rs 2,500 pay hike'

MUMBAI: The main reason why the BEST workers’ strike has continued for so long is that the management has been unable to commit on the union’s demand for a Rs 2,500 salary hike for each of nearly 13,000 junior grade staffers, who include drivers and conductors. The fact is that the losses of BEST’s transport wing have mounted year on year, with no foreseeable solution in sight.

Faced with roads clogged with private vehicles, the average speed of BEST buses has drastically come down in recent years, making a once-efficient mode of public transport unattractive for commuters, who have switched over to overcrowded locals, the Metro, and even ride-hailing cabs. Also, years of mismanagement (the Cerita deal of the late noughties being one of several examples) has bred inefficiency, resulting in fleet reduction and thus a disproportionately high salary burden—though an individual BEST worker suffers from chronic low pay (some BEST workers get a basic monthly pay of just Rs 5,430).

The union’s main demand is a Rs 2,500 hike to bring such workers to a higher pay grade of Rs 7,930 basic pay. Most of the junior grade workers had joined BEST after a strike in 2007, when the then management had recruited hundreds of new drivers and conductors at an extremely low pay with a basic of around Rs 3,500. A source said the then BEST general manager Uttam Khobragade’s rationale was giving jobs to unemployed youth. Subsequently, there was another round of recruitment in 2010-11, when a decision was taken to allocate proper grades and pay. “In 2012, a contract was signed between the then union leader Sharad Rao and the then BEST general manager O P Gupta, who agreed to regularise the grades of 13,000 staffers,” said a source from the BEST committee. What followed was disappointment.

While the workers expected to be absorbed in a higher grade with a basic pay of almost Rs 8,000 per month, the contract signed between the union and the management showed that the final sum was Rs 5,430 a month, which was 20 steps or grades lower than the demand.