The Federation of Tamil Nadu State Transport Employees Trade Union defended its ongoing strike saying the government had refused to consider its legitimate demands to revise wages.
At a press conference here on Friday, the trade union leaders said the State government, while doubling the salaries to elected representatives, government officials and judges, was not willing to accept their ‘demands’ of pay hike, repayment of ₹7,000 crore owed to the workers, including retired employees.
K. Natarajan, treasurer, Labour Progressive Federation, said only 10% of the fleet of 22,000 buses in the entire eight State transport corporations were operated on Friday.
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CITU transport trade union leader A. Soundararajan said the federation members had distributed pamphlets to commuters about the proposal to go on strike if the wage settlement talks failed.
He contended that the Transport Minister was giving false information that the amount owed by the government was only ₹5,000 crore and not ₹7,000 crore.