Come April 11, 2016, normal life in the country will go haywire following the indefinite strike call given by 47 lakh Central Government employees including 14 lakh workers of the Indian Railway to protest against the “retrograde recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission” and the failure of the Union Government to meet their “Charter of Demands”.
“This Government at the Centre is worried only about the interests of the corporates and it is totally against the welfare of the workforce,” alleged N Kannaiah, working president of the All India Railwaymen’s Federation who declared at Chennai on Monday the decision of the Joint Council of Action to go on an indefinite strike. Kannaiah said he would call on the southern railway general manager on March 11 to hand over the mandatory strike notice. .
“This is the first all India general strike by the Railwaymen after the 23 day strike in 1974 which literally paralysed the country. That strike also led to the change of Government,” Kannaiah, the most feared trade union leader in South India reminded the Union Government.
Kannaiah said the decision to declare the indefinite strike was taken after a secret ballot among the Railwaymen among Southern Railway numbering 86,724. He said 90.1 per cent of the total workers expressed their support in favour of an indefinite strike.
Kannaiah, who is also the general secretary of the Southern Railway Mazdoor Union, said that the employees have been demanding the merger of 100 per cent Dearness Allowance, payment of interim relief, scraping of new pension scheme and implementation of various demands which they had submitted to the Government.
“Though the previous Government led by Manmohan Singh a was sympathetic to our demands and the then Railway Minister Mallikarjun Kharge took up the issue of exempting Railwaymen from the purview of the New Pension Scheme, the New Government refused to accept all our demands. It also announced policies such as 100 per cent foreign direct investment in Railways and Defence, and also the intention to bifurcate Postal Department by converting postal savings under postal bank. This has created a lot of discontentment among the employees,” said the leader of the AIRF.
Though the Railway employees had earlier decided to go on an indefinite strike from November 23, 2015 the National Joint Council of Action decided to postpone the strike so that the authorities could study the full impact of the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission recommendation. “ We had demanded that the Central Government should declare its intentions on the 36 charter of demands we had submitted and which includes a minimum basic pay of `26,000/- instead of `18,000 as declared by the Government,” said Kannaiah.
He pointed out that 52 kind of allowances enjoyed by the Railwayen sice the third Pay Commission has been cancelled by the new Government causing severe inconvenience to the employees. “We want the Union Government to reject the Debroy Committee report which had recommended the total privatisation of the Indian Railways. The Bullet Train which is being planned to between Ahmedabad and Mumbai is meant for the rich and powerful in the country. A ticket by this train would cost `8,000 and this is not for the poor sections,” he said. Kannaiah also wanted the Union Government to fill the 3,00,000 lakh vacancies in the Railways.
Since the month of April marks the mid-summer vacation for educational institutions in the country, the travel plans of the common man would go awry with the strike call given by Kannaiah. He also said that 95 per cent of the commodities in the country are transported by the railway.