On Saturday, 400 permanent sanitation workers of Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) joined the indefinite strike of Karamchari Sangh (workers’ union). The workers union is on strike from January 19, after the civic body failed to clear the employees’ dues within the stipulated time frame. All these permanent sanitation workers have joined the workers’ union of RMC and are supporting the agitation.
As many as 1,600 contractual sanitation workers hired to keep city free of garbage have decided to join strike of RMC Karamchari Sangh and put their demand forward. Since 2013, the workers have been putting their demands.
Citing details about the demands, Naresh Ram, secretary of the Karamchari Sangh, informed, “The workers’ union has been putting the demands for last two years but nothing concrete have been done yet by the concerned authorities. Arrears have not yet been paid to the workers. The retirement pension of both grade 3 and 4 is comparatively less, which should be increased. We want the pension to be increased to Rs 20,000.”
“We have put eight demands and the workers will only return back to their work, if all our demands are fulfilled. Presently, we have support of Congress party and Jharkhand Shikshit Berojgar Mahasangh,” added Ram.
Payment of arrears of around 800 employees according to the fifth pay commission have yet not been fulfilled, increasing the family and regular retirement pensions and providing jobs on compassionate grounds are among few other demands kept by the employees of RMC.
However, on Saturday only 400 permanent sanitation workers have joined the strike, whereas approximately 12,000 contractual sanitation workers hired to manage, segregate and disperse solid wastes from across the city will join from January 25 to lend support to the movement, putting standstill to the cleanliness work and throwing state capital into mess for indefinite period.
RMC officials are putting constant efforts to convince the sanitation workers. “We have invited them to talk on the matter, considering their demands decisions will be made accordingly. As far as cleanliness of city is concerned, we will first try to convince these workers as soon as possible and garbage cleaning and management will not suffer,” informed PRO of RMC, Naresh Kumar Sinha.
On Saturday, Congress Spokesperson, Rajiv Ranjan Prasad too came in support of these sanitation workers and Karamchari Sangh. “These workers are constantly putting their demand and yet after so much effort not a single demand of these people has been fulfilled by the authorities. Our party will lend them support, until some strict measures are not adopted to fulfill workers demand.”