BENGALURU: While the Joint Action Committee of the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation has withdrawn its indefinite strike scheduled from Tuesday after holding a meeting, chaired by Karnataka State Transport Corporation MD Anbu Kumar, on Saturday, another section of the transport union said they will go on with their strike from Friday.
Members of the Karnataka State Road Transport Employees’ League said they are unhappy with the 15 per cent wage hike order passed by the government and termed it a unilateral decision. Chandrashekar R, president of the league, said the state government agreed to the wage hike demands of government employees union and KPTCL employees but has ignored transport employees’ demands, hiking the basic pay by just 15 per cent.
“We have already issued a 14-day strike notice to Labour Commissioner. From March 24, RTC workers will not report to work. We will not budge till our wage hike and other demands that include taking back of dismissed employees who took part in the 2021 protest, withdrawal of FIRs filed against the employees and others are not met,” said Chandrashekar.
Meanwhile, Representatives of the Joint Action Committee, led by veteran transport activist H V Anantha Subbarao, who withdrew their indefinite strike, met Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Sunday and thanked him personally for hiking the salary of the employees.
A release from JAC said they were assured by the KSRTC that the pay revision will be effective from January 2020. “A single-member committee has been given a period of one month to decide the amount of grant to the transport corporations. Salary scale, bata (incentive), and other allowances will be discussed with the labour organisation,” the release said.