Government Order No. 86, issued on Tuesday night, came as a bolt of lightning to over 12,000 ‘Makkal Nala Paniyalargal'.
The order dismissing over 12,000 contract employees overnight was delivered without warning to the workers who had petitioned the government to make them permanent staff.
The posts were “disbanded” immediately, giving the affected workers no opportunity to prepare themselves, or present a counter or plea to the government.
“We have been arbitrarily dismissed and have been given no rhyme or reason, except that we were ‘surplus'. This is most unfair,” fumed N. Chellapandian, president, Staff For People's Welfare Union. “Most of us have been working in this post since 1990, and are way past 40-45 years. If you take our jobs overnight, how will we feed our family, send our children to school or get them married?”
“Any other government job is out of question, they do not look at people beyond 30 or 35 years. As for the private sector, that is next to impossible, he lamented.”
D. Johnson, who works in Thiruparankundram Union, said for most of the staff, the consolidated pay of Rs.5000 was the only source of income for the entire family.
“Even in the odd instance where another member of the family is earning, it will be a paltry amount, certainly insufficient to run a family.”
“We begin our day at 7 a.m., even earlier, and are responsible for co-ordinating the labourers who are given tasks under the NREGA. Sometimes, this will be as many as 400 people, and we are in charge of allotting them work, measuring the land, and arranging for payment. This, apart from the other awareness generation and civil tasks too,” Mr. Johnson said.
The tasks of these contract staff, appointed for a period of two years at a time, was to take reach information about various government welfare schemes to those in rural areas.
They were also responsible for co-ordinating the labour under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.
The Staff for People's Welfare group has always had a rocky relationship with the government. It was the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government that first appointed the Staff for People's Welfare way back in 1990, on a consolidated pay of Rs.200 per month.
Ten months later, in 1991, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) government headed by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa summarily dismissed the 25,000-odd staff.
The posts were revived in 1997, as the DMK returned to power, and the consolidated pay was raised to Rs.500 per month. Once again, with the return of AIADMK to power, they were dismissed in 2001, only to be re-appointed by the DMK government in 2006. Their pay was raised to Rs.1000.
Subsequently, since the last wage revision, they were put on special time scale pay, and now draw Rs.5,280 every month.
One distraught representative of the Makkal Nala Paniyalargal of K.V. Kuppam in Vellore district said on condition of anonymity, “We have literally been stopped in our tracks.”
She is among the 7,000 female staff who found themselves without a job for the third time since they signed up.
In her case, and she pointed out, the situation was similar for a number of people, she was the only income earner of the family and had two grown-up girls who go to college and school to take care of.
The union plans to go to court to contest the order, and has already started a string of protests across the State.
“We are also appealing to the Chief Minister to consider the state of our families and rescind this order,” Mr. Chellapandian said.
