Following pressure exerted by the Joint Action Council of the teaching and non-teaching staff, Annamalai University, entangled in a financial crisis, has altered the retirement policy for its teaching staff.
Before the crisis, the university was following two different retirement policies for non-teaching and teaching staff.
While the former were relieved from duty in the very same month they attained superannuation, teaching staff who were to retire in the course of the calendar year were allowed to continue in service, with full benefits, till the end of the academic year.
However, the tight financial situation and the insistence of the JAC have made the management to yield grounds and to adopt a uniform retirement policy for both teaching and non-teaching staff. Such a policy shift has brought to abrupt end the career of many senior academics.
Meanwhile, the JAC has proposed to take its agitation a step further by prevailing upon the management to give Pongal bonus, dearness allowance arrears and other common benefits accompanying the salary package.
R. Udaiachandran and S. Mathiyalagan, coordinator and deputy coordinator of the JAC, contended that since the management had agreed to pay the usual salary it was bound to honour its commitment in its entirety.
