Sanitation workers under the banner of Akhil Bharatiya Safai Mazdoor Sangh (ABSMS) and labour Committee of Uttarakhand continued their work boycott on Tuesday. The strike which began on Monday in support of demands including regularisation of ward sanitation committee workers in the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun affected the level of sanitatation in the provisional State capital.
Speaking about the matter, ABSMS head Rajesh Kumar said, “Our demands are clear. We had been promised regularisation of 408 workers out of 610 as they have been working for more than 10 years. However, nothing has been done by the officials in this regard so far. The second demand of ours which we were assured would be met was a fair increase in our wages. We have also been demanding the discontinuation of the contractual system. However, actions on our demands have been limited to official papers as nothing concrete has been done in the past 18 months.”
He further said, “The additional municipal commissioner Neeraj Joshi had a talk with us and he asked us to end our strike. He also assured us that a meeting will be held with the district magistrate to address our issues. We are not going to end our strike until our demands are fulfilled. We will continue to boycott work as we have been since Monday,” he added.
Meanwhile, the additional municipal commissioner said, “We are trying to resolve the issue for which we have also asked the district magistrate and forwarded the issue to officials concerned. If the strike continues then we will make alternate arrangements to carry on the route civic sanitation work in the city,” he said.