The Visakha Steel Contract Workers Trade Unions, owing allegiance to CITU, AITUC, INTUC, HMS, TNTUC, YSRTUC, DP Union and DVRC unions, at their meeting here on Sunday, decided to continue their weeklong strike till their demands were met by the management.
The union leaders told the media that the 16,000 contract workers were on strike for the past one week and it was affecting production. They alleged that the management was not taking any steps to resolve the issue. The demands of the contract workers include payment of wages for the lockdown period, provision of job to a dependent from families of workers, who died due to COVID-19, payment of ₹30 lakh as ex gratia to the dependents of workers, who were killed in accidents, provision of ambulance to contract workers injured in accidents, for shifting to the ESI Hospital and provision of 16 government and festival holidays a year.
CITU city president K.M. Srinivasa Rao and representatives of all the above-mentioned unions spoke.
