Members of the Erode District Local Body Workers’ Association, affiliated to AITUC, has urged the State government to immediately issue a Government Order that enable conservancy workers (Thuimai Kavalargal) to get the wage hike of ₹ 1,000 that was announced by the government in March 2020. The association said that if their demand is not met, they would go on an indefinite strike on the Collectorate premises from October 28 until a Government Order is issued.
In a petition to the Chief Minister, its president S. Chinnasamy said that there are 66,130 workers undertaking solid waste management works in 12,525 village panchayats across the State. A total of 1,961 workers are involved in the works at 225 village panchayats in the district.
The petition said that initially they were paid wages under the under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Scheme (MGNREGS) and the workers received ₹ 167 a day in 2014-15, ₹ 183 in 2015-16, ₹ 203 in 2016-17 and ₹ 205 in 2017-18. However, their wages were reduced and fixed at ₹ 2,600 from April 2018 which is against the law. “Workers were unable to meet their expenses due to the reduced consolidated wage”, the petition said.
The petition said that Minister for Municipal Administration S.P. Velumani had in March 2020 during the State budget session announced a wage hike of ₹ 1,000 for the workers. However, no Government Order was passed in the past six months, the petition said. Despite many representations, wage hike was not implemented nor their arrears disbursed so far, the petition said.