Employees owing allegiance to the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU)-affiliated Kerala State Road Transport Employees Association (KSRTEA) and the Congress-affiliated Transport Democratic Front (TDF) in the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) will go on a dawn-to-dusk token strike in Thiruvananthapuram district on December 17.
The strike, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., by the recognised unions, is in protest against the delay in settling their various long-pending demands. The services to Pampa have been exempted from the strike.
Dharnas will be staged in front of all depots of the KSRTC across the State by the KSRTEA.
Strike noticeBoth the unions served strike notices to the management on Thursday. A KSRTC official confirmed that the notices had been received.
The unions had been agitating in front of the Secretariat from December 1. TDF secretary B. Raghu Kumar said the management had not bothered to call the unions for talks.
The main demand raised by unions was a permanent solution to the disbursement of pension to the retirees. The corporation had not paid the pension for the past three months.
The other demands included steps to improve operations and repayment of salary recoveries of employees to the Life Insurance Corporation and various banks. The corporation had diverted Rs.80 crore collected from the salaries to honour other the commitments, he said.
The employees were also against the creation of a separate entity, headquartered in Kochi, to operate JNNURM buses.
Buses that had already been purchased under JNNURM should be retained with the transport utility, Mr. Raghu Kumar said.
