Seven dismissed staff to be reinstated as strike ends

CHENNAI: After three consecutive days of protest, 250 employees ended their strike on Wednesday after Chennai Metro Rail agreed to reinstate seven employees who were dismissed on April 29. Officials said that the seven employees will be formally taken back only after an appeal is submitted by these employees to the management. 

Eight permanent employees were dismissed by Metro Rail for forming an union and for opposing the move of outsourcing workers. While seven workers will be reinstated, the eighth worker’s case must be taken up in court for a long absence of leave, said officials.

“We do not want to cause any inconvenience to passengers. Hence we are withdrawing the strike even when three other workers were unjustly suspended,” said A Soundararajan, general secretary of CITU.
Also, on Wednesday, Metro Rail had suspended three employees for allegedly hampering the services intentionally on April 29. But union members said that Metro Rail had purposely framed three employees as they took part in the strike. 

Two traffic controllers and one depot controller were suspended for allegedly deserting the workplace while on duty and sabotaging the services, said Metro Rail in a statement. “The three non-executive staffs who were controlling the train movement on corridors one and two halted trains by giving false commands. They disrupted the main signalling system intentionally,” said an official.
One worker said: “It’s not practically possible to sabotage the system. It’s a designed software that can be altered only by the engineers who created it. We have only user access.”