Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Improve functioning of STC, says CITU

COIMBATORE: The State Government should take steps to improve the functioning of the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation as it heading towards a crisis, Centre of Indian Trade Unions State Committee secretary A. Soundararajan said here on Thursday.

Talking to presspersons during a State-level meeting of the committee, he called for administrative and financial measures from the Government to prevent the crisis. The losses incurred by the State Express Transport Corporation called for remedial measures. The Government must also get back the route timings that it had given to private operators.

Mr. Soundararajan also alleged that the managements of tea plantations in Valparai and Udhagamandalam were hesitant in paying the minimum wages for workers that were fixed by the Government. About 2,000 workers of the State-run TANTEA were not regularised and they were paid only Rs.60 to Rs.70 a day. “We have already spoken about this problem with Rural Industries Minister Pongalur N. Palanisamy,” he said.

Around the third week of January, the CITU would stage an agitation across the State to press for rights for workers to form trade unions. Mr. Soundararajan said this was to protest against the private industrial units not allowing the workers to form unions.

About 500 employees had been dismissed and another 500 placed under suspension in 20 units because of their efforts to form unions, he alleged. The CITU would speak to other unions also for a joint agitation.

Mr. Soundararjan said the Central Government should reduce the price of diesel by Rs.10 and not just Rs.2. Though petrol price should also be reduced by Rs.10, it was more important to bring down that of diesel as it always had an impact on the price of other items. The CITU supported the strike on fuel prices called by lorry owners’ association for December 20.

In the coming Lok Sabha elections, workers affiliated to the CITU would vote for a front that was not led by the Bharatiya Janata Party or the Congress, because both of them did not protect the public sector units.

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