Vadodara Municipal Corporation staffers end strike after promise

VADODARA: The Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) employees and workers went on a strike on Monday to press for their long-pending demands. The strike that was largely successful was withdrawn in the evening after a written assurance from the VMC regarding some of the demands.
The employees had been on an agitation soon after the civic body reorganized its administrative wards and made them equal to the number of election wards. Earlier, there were 11 administrative wards for the 19 election wards. Now, the number is equal and the area of an administrative and an election ward are the same.
To facilitate work at the new wards, several employees were transferred by the civic body. One of the demands of the Vadodara Mahanagarpalika Karmachari Mahamandal (VMKM) was giving postings to people with serious illnesses, disabled persons and women in wards close to their houses.
VMKM had also demanded that the VMC's establishments and related expenses should be worked out according to the new wards. The other demands included house rent allowance as per the sixth pay commission, sufficient machinery for the new wards, confirming sanitary workers who had worked for more than 720 days, early settlement of dues of retired employees, uniforms for employees, medical check-up of employees and others.
VMKM was called for a meeting by theVMC administration late on Monday evening. While the VMC agreed to resolve some of the issues soon, VMKM demanded this in writing. The strike was withdrawn after VMC gave a letter stating that it will fulfil or begin the process to meet 10 of the demands.