CHENNAI: The employees of the Tamil Nadu Transport Corporation will go an indefinite strike from May 15, which is likely to have a major impact on public commuting. The eight transport corporations, which carry several crores of passengers daily, operates 22,500 buses across the state.
The strike has been jointly called by 10 major unions including the Labour Progressive Federation (DMK) and the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CPM). However, it is unclear whether the employee union affiliated to the ruling party would take part in the proposed strike.
Stating that a strike notice had been served earlier, K Arumugam Nainar of the CITU charged that the transport corporation, currently in a financial crisis, had been utilising the money that should go for present and past employees. “The government must pay for the operational deficit. There has been no relief in form of budgetary allocation either,” he said. The retirement benefits of 13,000 former employees, who retired from service more than three years ago, are not being paid. That amount currently stands at Rs 1500 crore, Arumuga Nainar said.
He also said there was no breakthrough in the negotiations with the state government on the 13-point wage agreement, despite a few rounds of talks. Efforts would be made to reach out to people, informing them about employee problems on May 11 and 12, Nainar said.