Tirupur sanitary workers stage protest demanding payment of salary dues

COIMBATORE: More than 300 sanitary workers, who are working for the Tirupur Corporation on a contract basis, boycotted work on Tuesday and staged a protest demanding that the civic body pay them last month’s salary immediately.
Workers from 40 wards joined together and staged the protest in three zones of the corporation limit.
“As per the district collector’s direction, the workers should be paid Rs 420 per day as wage. The contractors would pay Rs 300 per day after deducting a percentage for EPF and other benefits and it would be paid between 5 and 10 of every month. But more than 500 contract workers didn’t receive salary for July,” said K Rangaraj, general secretary of the CITU, who led the protest.
Pointing out that the daily wage for the workers was revised to Rs 510 by the collector on August 16, the workers demanded that the corporation implement the revised wage and pay the salary by 5th of every month.
At a time when the number of Covid-19 positive cases was increasing gradually in the district, officials should take steps to test the sanitary workers regularly and give them safety gear with good quality, he added.
Corporation officials held a meeting with the protesters in the presence of the contractor. The officials assured them that the pending salary would be paid in two days.