A combined strike by employees of various unions, raising demands including pay revision at the Milma dairy unit at Punnapra here on Thursday has thrown milk distribution and availability into jeopardy across the district.
The strike, which began shortly after noon, was launched by a combined council of the workers’ unions at the plant, including the INTUC and the CITU. The nine-point strike note included demands for pay revision across all cadres at the plant and for the Government to implement the contract that it had signed with the employees in 2007.
The strike, for which the employees’ unions had issued a notice to the management on December 8, has brought operations at the plant, from where 80,000 litres of milk is distributed every day, to a complete halt. The cascading effect of the strike, with the public not being prepared, was a sudden shortage of milk across the district with hotels and other public eateries running out of stock of milk packets.
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There will be no distribution of milk on Friday morning as well, the agitators said.
The management of the plant, meanwhile has requested the employees to call off the strike on account of the festival season and because they were not in a position to make commitments on the demands raised by the employees. The decision had to be taken at the Government-level and a talk between the unions of the 13 dairy units of the Milma across the State was already scheduled for January 6, they said.