Chennai
Employees of Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) are hopeful of a settlement to the ongoing wage revision talks inspite of the clashes on February 23 and the continued rivalry of the trade unions affiliated to the ruling party, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam ( DMK).
The MTC workers have been protesting for the past 15 months for wage revision, better service conditions, pension benefits, provident fund for those who joined the service after April 1, 2003, and payment of gratuity to the retired staff.
As per this Act, tripartite talks among representatives of the employees’ union, MTC management and Labour Department officials should be held every three years for wage revision and a settlement should be reached based on these talks.
The tenure of the last wage agreement expired in September 2013, but the government did not commence the wage revision talks for the past one and half years.
The workers blamed the bitter rivalry between Anna Thozhil Sangha Peravai (ATP) of the AIADMK and the Labour Progressive Federation (LPF) of the DMK for the present situation. One of the Labourers, Manivalan, cited the clash between members of ATP and LPF during the first round of talks at the MTC training centre at Chrompet on March 2 as the reason for the delay.
According to this employee, the management was delaying the wage revision talks by saying that engaging in wage revision talks at this stage would be contempt of court. The matter was finally resolved when LPF gave a letter to the government, saying it had no objection to other unions being invited for talks.
However, inspite of the fight between two majoyr employees’ union, workers are optimistic about the outcome of the talks.
“The first round of talks was satisfactory. We are hopeful that all the outstanding issues will be settled during next round of talks scheduled for March 12,” said P. Balakrishnan General Secretary of the MTC Chapter of Centre of Indian Trade Unions(CITU).
