Demands not met, sanitation workers warn of strike again in Gurgaon

GURGAON: With brooms in hands, MCG’s sanitation workers on Thursday rallied from the community centre in Sector 27 to Galleria market demanding regularisation of contractual workers and recruitment of sanitation workers.
Other demands include the salaries of the workers to be disbursed on the first of every month without any delay and safety gear should also be provided to the workers.
The protesters said that if the civic body and the state government did not agree to their demands within 10 days, all workers would go on strike. They distributed pamphlets of their demand charter to the general public. The sanitation workers have been protesting since February 24outside the MCG office.
“We have been protesting for nearly two months now, however our demands are not being metby the state government and MCG. We were earlier protesting at MCG office, however now we will take our protest to the general public so that they know our plight.We held a protest at Sadar Bazar on Wednesday and today (Thursday) we rallied around Galleria market. If our demands are not met in 10 days, we will leave all our work and go on strike,” said Naresh Malkat, state secretary of Nagar Palika Karamchari Sangh.
The workers said that the state government had assured them in October last year, when they had protested for 11 days, that new recruitments will be made against the vacant sanctioned posts. However, the urban local bodies (ULB) department in a letter issued on February 8 stated that ‘Gurgaon has 3,137 sanctioned posts and all of them are filled, so no new recruitment will take place’ in the city.
MCG officials maintained that regularisation and recruitment of workers is a policy matter for which the state government has to take a decision.