VIJAYAWADA: Members of the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation Workers’ Union affiliated to CITU are demanding that the civic body pay the wages of workers and employees immediately.
More than 5,000 DWACWA and outsourcing employees are working for the civic body. The wages have not been paid to DWACWA workers since July and to the outsourcing employees since June. They are paid `6,500 to 6,700 per month.
The workers and employees staged a dharna at VMC here Monday demanding that civic body pay salaries regularly through ‘010 Head Account’ (Treasury Department) and regularise their services.
“More than 400 workers retired in 2013 and they are yet to get the retirement benefits like gratuity, commutation, group insurance and PF,” said Muzaffar Ahmed, CITU city general secretary.
He lamented that the lives of the workers had become miserable as the corporation did not pay their salaries since June.
“According to the pay revision commission (PRC), the minimum wages should be hiked to Rs 13,000,” Ahmed added.
CPM city secretary Ch Babu Rao alleged that the Corporation was also misappropriating the Provident Fund and ESI deducted from the salaries of the workers. He asked the government to provide permanent housing facility for the Corporation workers.
B Sri Lakshmi, a sanitation worker, said “We are facing a lot of problems due to the delay in payment of wages. It is affecting our livelihood and we have been requesting the officials to solve the problems but there has been no response.”.
K Abraham, a VMC health wing worker, said, “VMC is not providing the necessary equipment required for cleaning. It is also not paying the wages regularly for the past three years even though we work for more than 10 hours a day.”