CHENNAI: Elections for recognising trade unions of railway employees, scheduled for August, will decide whether Southern Railway Mazdoor Union (SRMU) will continue to remain the sole recognised union in the zone.
Nearly 13 lakh members, mostly group C and D employees, who work in workshops, sheds and divisions, can exercise their franchise in the elections, which are held once in six years. Southern Railway which has jurisdiction in TN, Kerala and parts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka has 86,000 group C and D staff.
Though SRMU office-bearers often come to limelight for wrong reasons, the union, headed by its general secretary N Kannaiah remains popular among a large section of employees, railway workers said.Many workers attribute the condition to draconian rules in various departments which were imposed during the British rule, adding unions provide protection from such rules.
A section of top railway officials also silently endorses the demands of powerful unions like SRMU as the bureaucracy itself finds its hand tied due to colonial rules.A senior commercial clerk at Egmore said, “On an average, on weekends, ticket collection increases from about Rs 80,000 to Rs 2 lakh and many last minute travellers leave the change at counters to catch the train and sometimes we also mistakenly lose money to passengers. But, as per the railway rule, a commercial clerk can be subjected to departmental action (from suspension to dismissal) if an excess of Rs 100 is found in the ticket collections. Given that a majority of passengers do not bring exact fare, it is practically impossible to keep checking the collections throughout the day. This makes the unions inevitable,” he explained. Similarly, many other rules are being followed religiously for several decades without looking into the practical constraints, workers said.
Trade unions in coach production units such as ICF (Chennai), RCF (Kapurthala) and rolling stock manufacturing factories have not been recognised by railway board and no election will be conducted in these units. SRMU, Dakshin Railway Employees Union (DREU), Southern Railway Employees’ Sangh (SRES) and a few other unions will contest.
“Employees will cast votes to chose trade unions. The unions will in turn appoint general secretary, president and office-bearers at zonal, branch and divisional levels,” said R Elangovan, DREU vice president. SRMU, which received over 53 per cent votes in the last poll, remains the sole representative for the last two decades.
“There had been suggestions in the past to allocate trade union posts in proportion to the number of votes each trade union obtained in elections. A committee has been constituted to review the modalities for the coming elections,” explained Elangovan.