On demand of regularising the contractual workers of Uttarakhand roadways, the Uttaranchal Roadways Karmachari Union (URKU) has decided to go on strike on November 24. The State general secretary of URKU, Ashok Choudhary said that the association had earlier undertaken a strike on September 16 but the State Transport Minister assured that the demands of the association would be looked into and a written understanding was reached between union and Government following which the three day strike was taken back. He claimed that Government had done nothing on the demand of the union since then and the URKU is forced to organize a one day strike on November 24.
Choudhary said that a cabinet sub committee has recommended that all contractual workers working for more than five years would be regularized but the management of roadways is trying to sabotage the regularization of more than 2900 employees by sing them as outsource workers. He claimed that almost all the drivers and conductors of the State carrier are members of this organisation.
The union is under pressure from about 1400 conductors, 500 depot workers and 980 drivers for regularizing their services.
The strike call of the URKU is bound to affect the roadways services as most of the drivers and conductors are members of this union.
The fleet of the State roadways comprises 1250 buses. The daily cash flow of the State roadways is Rs 1.25 crore per day and more than 1.40 lakh people commute daily in the buses of State transport carrier.