CHENNAI: 40-old Bhaskar* doesn’t take a leave or rather, he ‘can’t’. If he did, he won’t be paid that day by one of the State’s most prestigious employers — the postal department. But Bhaskar* isn’t the only one handed this raw deal. Thousands like him scratch a living under the peculiar title ‘Casual labourers and Outsider’ with the postal department.
“I earn only Rs 410 a day. They (the department) make us do all the work but still won’t include us in the muster rolls,” says Bhaskar. While workers like him in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh enjoy the perks of Group D employees, (Rs 18,000 a month and government holidays, to name a few) these extra-departmental staff in Tamil Nadu are turned a Nelson’s eye.
“It was workers like us who worked tirelessly when demonetisation took place. We were asked to assist the postmaster in currency exchange. The department, however, disregarded our contributions and did not pay us,” Baskar said, adding that it was the epithet ‘outsiders’ that hurts the most.
Radhe Shyam* says the salary is too low to look after families. He says most of the casual workers like him have put in more than 20 years. Notably, an order from the Post Master General in 2013 mandated that all such workers should be treated as full-time casual labourers. “All daily-wage workers in post offices or railway mail offices or administrative offices under different designations (mazdoor, casual labour, contingent, paid staff, daily wage labourers, daily rated mazdoor and outsider) should be treated as full-time casual labourers if they put in eight hours a day,” says the order copy accessed by TNIE.
This order, however, has been ignored till date. The reason? The postal department says it has no casual worker in its rolls! “We don’t come under the muster roll. As such, we don’t have papers to confirm we work for the postal department. The salary is paid through voucher,” says Bhaskar, who wanted this reporter to hide his identity because he fears he will be shunted out for voicing his struggles.
And he has valid reasons to believe so. It is learnt that a group of workers banded together to take this matter to court. Before they could do that, all of them were sacked. “Even postal unions are careful in taking up their case,” says RB Suresh, convenor of National Federation of Postal Employees. “We have to take their case unofficially,” he added.
“Postal department enrols contract workers to deliver mails as they are short of staff. These employees are
paid low wages compared with their counterparts in other States. They are denied rights despite a standing order to treat them as full-time casual labourers,” said D Sivagurunathan, head of a labour union association.
Chief Postmaster General, Tamil Nadu Circle, B Selvakumar told TNIE that these workers were initially used to take the place of Gramin Dak Sevaks (GDSs) or extra departmental agents going on leave. GDSs are eligible for 10-day casual leave. If they require additional leave, they have to make alternate arrangements at their own cost. This is where the ‘outsiders’ came in. The outsider who takes the place of a GDS should be paid the wages of the latter, but is not under department pay rolls. And when GDS posts are vacant, these ‘outsiders’ work for a longer time, even for months till the post fills up.
“Once the post is filled, they are sent to some other vacant posts and are paid Rs 10,000-12,000 a month. Some of them have worked even for more than 20 years in various posts and there is no such rule to consider them as regular employees. We have to look at it on case-to-case basis. We don’t maintain any service record except paying their remuneration,” said the Post Master General.
*Name changed