100 staff stage stir after Chennai Metro Rail dismisses eight

CHENNAI: Around 100 employees of Chennai Metro Rail staged a protest outside the head office in Koyambedu on Monday after eight permanent employees were dismissed for alleged misconduct.

Due to this there was a 10-15 minute delay in the metro rail services. Officials said there was no interruption in train services as outsourced workers were deployed as train operators. The matter dates back to December 2018 when members of the metro rail employees union wrote to the management, expressing their dissent against the outsourcing of workers on a contract basis. Following this, eight permanent workers were temporarily suspended by CMRL. The suspended workers filed a case in the Madras High Court, proceedings for which are going on.

“We got a date for the next hearing and the court has ordered a status quo till the next hearing. In the meantime, how can the management dismiss us? This shows that they have no regard for the law. We wanted to stop the system of outsourcing workers as this puts passengers at risk. But they only want to save money at all costs,” said one of the eight dismissed employees.

Employees said trains had come to a sudden halt, multiple times due to untrained outsourced workers manning operation and maintenance of the services. “An outsourced staff gets nearly `60,000 as salary while permanent workers get only `28,000. Instead of recruiting nearly 1,500 permanent employees, they outsourced untrained workers in their place who have no technical knowledge. We were not allowed to meet the managing director as well,” added another employee.

When Express contacted CMRL, an official said that the eight employees were removed from service on the grounds of misconduct, not doing work as per norms, indiscipline and for threatening a contractor. “After they were suspended in December, 15 days later, they gave an explanation to the enquiry officer. But their reasoning was not acceptable. Hence they were suspended. They could have met the managing director after this to revoke the suspension, but they did not opt for this option,” said the official.