Civic workers to go on indefinite strike from today in Coimbatore

COIMBATORE: With the wage revision talks with contract conservancy workers yielding no promising results, a large section of sanitary workers in the city is likely to go on an indefinite strike from Thursday, raising fear of heaps of garbage piling up across Coimbatore.
While the district administration had fixed the wage at 721 per day after an earlier protest by the contract conservancy workers demanding a hike, the city corporation passed a resolution in December last year to pay a lesser amount of 648, which they half-heartedly accepted. However, the workers said they were not even paid the same and given only 421 per day.
When the contract workers announced the plans strike work indefinitely, civic authorities invited them for talks. After four rounds of talks, including one on Tuesday, they couldn’t arrive at any resolution. Hence, the conservancy workers declared that they would go on an indefinite strike from Thursday.
It is to be noted that more than 3,500 of the 6,000-odd conservancy workers are employed on a contract basis. The civic body is largely dependent on them for garbage collection and disposal. If the 3,500-odd contract workers strike work, waste management work in the city would be severely hit. The corporation would not be in a position to clean the entire city with the help of permanent staff.
Corporation authorities said while 648 was the daily wage for the conservancy workers, they were getting lesser because of deductions towards provident fund and ESI contribution. The contract sanitary workers, however, didn’t accept the justification and demanded higher payment. They also wanted the authorities to withdraw a government order that paves way for abolishing several lower level posts in the civic body.