Several sanitation workers continued their strike for the fourth consecutive day on Thursday at the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (CMWSSB) office premises at M.R.C. Nagar demanding that they be made permanent workers.
About 1,900 sanitation workers are employed on a contract basis in various categories, including field workers and in sewage treatment plants and pumping stations. They started an agitation on Monday. The protesting sanitation workers said they had been working for many years without proper recognition or benefits. They demanded that their jobs must be regularised. Some of them alleged that their salaries were not being paid in time.
Officials of the CMWSSB said the operation and maintenance of the sewerage network was being monitored and complaints were being handled with the available manpower.
“We held talks with the representatives of protesting workers and explained that regularising jobs was a policy decision to be taken by the State government. The board had no powers to absorb contract workers as permanent staff,” said an official.
The workers were assured that if they had any complaint about wages or other issues, the board would take it up with the contractors concerned, the officials said.
