Amidst the sweeping reforms being introduced in the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC), the three major unions in the State transport undertaking, affiliated to the CITU, INTUC, and AITUC, have decided to go ahead with their agitation in support of a 17-point charter of demands.
An announcement will be made by State CITU president Anathalavattom Anandan in front of the Transport Bhavan, the headquarters of the KSRTC, at Fort here on Tuesday.
Three zones
The announcement by the unions for a token strike is being made a day ahead of the KSRTC formally creating three zones — North, based in Kozhikode, Central, based in Ernakulam, and South, based in Thiruvananthapuram — based on the recommendation of the Sushil Khanna Committee tasked with restructuring the State transport utility.
The unions are demanding revision of salary, DA arrears, interim relief, end to unscientific rescheduling of services, promotions, posting to those who got advice memo from PSC, minimum wages to the temporary staff, resumption of bus-body building, abandoning of wet lease of buses and unscientific revision of duty of bus crew among other things.
Indefinite stir
The wage agreement ended in 2016 and no DA had been issued to the employees after the LDF government came to power, working president of the TDF R. Sasidharan said.
The union has also petitioned against the creation of the three zones to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Transport Minister A.K. Saseendran as they fear that they would become separate entities. “If the demands are not met, the unions will go on an indefinite stir,” he added.
