As part of their State-wide agitation, various employees’ associations of Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) staged a demonstration here on Tuesday, condemning the inordinate delay shown by the Tamil Nadu government in implementing wage revision for the employees.
The protesters said the wage revision, which ought to be done every four years, had been pending for TANGEDCO employees since December 2015.
T. Jaishankar, deputy general secretary, TANGEDCO unit of Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), alleged that the government was inclined towards dragging the process as much as possible.
He said that though the associations and the government came to an understanding way back in October 2017 on the issue, the government had not finalised the agreement yet. “A wage revision using the multiplying factor of 2.57 was agreed at that although the government did not assure us about the payment of arrears since December 2015. We thought that the arrears part can be taken up subsequently and wanted the government to implement wage revision first.”
According to the protesters, after some of the unions announced a protest on January 23, it was agreed during a negotiation arranged by the Labour Department that a formal agreement would be arrived at by February 12.
Meanwhile, they said, a letter from the Finance Department that the wage revision would be calculated using a multiplying factor of only 2.4 got leaked, which agitated the employees.
“On January 31, 2018, the government entered into a negotiation with the ruling party labour association and a few smaller associations and announced a paltry interim relief of ₹2,500 for four months, whereas we are demanding the arrears for 26 months since December 2015,” Mr. Jaishankar said.
R. Devaraj of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh said the interim relief was a ploy by the government to prolong the wage revision process.
S. Umanath of CITU said a majority of the associations had announced a strike on February 16 on the wage revision issue.
