After two rounds of discussions, office-bearers of the recognised, Employees Union in the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (EU-APSRTC) and the Telangana Mazdoor Union agreed to call off the proposed strike from Wednesday morning, over the issue of 27 per cent interim relief payment. The two unions had threatened to go on strike from Wednesday after talks with the management over payment of interim relief of 27 per cent initially failed on Tuesday evening. An agreement was however, reached in the second round, that the Interim Relief for the month of March would be paid with the April salary, while that pertaining to February would be paid to the employees by April 15. The two unions were represented by General secretaries K. Padmakar (EU) and P. Aswadhama Reddy (TMU). The first round lasting an hour-and-a-half of talks failed after the management expressed its inability to pay the IR to the staff and the employees announced that they would strike work from Wednesday. A worried management again came up with the alternative proposal to woo the employees from going ahead with the strike.
On January 26, 2014, the management had reached an agreement with employees in the presence of Transport Minister Botcha Satyanarayana that interim relief would be paid together with February’s salary. However, when it looked as if it would not be included in the pay bill, the EU and TMU served notice on February 26 on the management. The financial burden on the management for payment of interim relief amounts to Rs. 385 crore a year.
