The 10th round of talks between representatives of trade unions and officials of the Transport Department on Wednesday ended without an agreement.
The meeting was attended by Transport Minister M.R. Vijayabhaskar, Principal Secretary of Transport Department P.W.C. Davidar and Additional Secretary of Finance Department R. Anandakumar and union leaders from 47 transport unions. The next round of talks would be held on January 3.
According to transport department sources, the wage revision mechanism announced by them would be discussed by trade union leaders before coming to the next round of talks. The talks would be conducted once in 10 years, if the wage revision is for 2.57%. Similarly, the talks would be conducted once in four years if the wage revision is for 2.44% and once in three years if it is 2.37%.
According to trade unionists, the workers have been fighting for more than four years on issues such as clearing of arrears, salary hike, annual increment and insurance money.
“The MTC owes us more than ₹7,000 crore, which they have deducted from our salaries to pay our insurance and PF. Recently, they said the money would never be paid to us. That was why we started the protest,” said a CITU representative.
So far, ₹1,250 crore has been sanctioned to meet the retirement benefits of transport employees and the entire dues for them were expected to be settled before September end.
