PAU agrees to demands, staff end strike

Ludhiana: Two worker unions of Punjab Agricultural University ended a 25-day strike on Tuesday as the varsity agreed to their demands, said PAU Employees Union president Baldev Singh Walia.
PAU Employees Union and PAU Class Four Workers’ Union had been protesting since April 26 to demand an increase in the posts of car/jeep driver supervisors and promotion of agricultural sub-inspectors to the post of agricultural field officer.
Members of the unions organised a rally in front of Thapar Hall on Tuesday. Walia addressed the gathering and said university authorities had agreed to fulfil the demands of employees. He said the university’s registrar had given them in writting about the decisions taken in a meeting of representatives of the union with the authorities.
He said their demands will be discussed by PAU’s board of management in its next meeting, which is to be held on May 29.
Also, promotions of office, laboratory, field and technical staff will be done within a month, he said. In case of non-teaching posts, no post will be abolished and employees will be promoted to AO or SPO. Pending cases of promotion have been settled by the committee and these cases will be presented to the board in the next meeting.